Effective Fault Localization Approach Using Feedback

Yan LEI; Xiaoguang MAO; Ziying DAI; Dengping WEI

doi:10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247

Effective Fault Localization Approach Using Feedback

Yan LEI, Xiaoguang MAO, Ziying DAI, Dengping WEI

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At the stage of software debugging, the effective interaction between software debugging engineers and fault localization techniques can greatly improve fault localization performance. However, most fault localization approaches usually ignore this interaction and merely utilize the information from testing. Due to different goals of testing and fault localization, the lack of interaction may lead to the issue of information inadequacy, which can substantially degrade fault localization performance. In addition, human work is costly and error-prone. It is vital to study and simulate the pattern of debugging engineers as they apply their knowledge and experience to this interaction to promote fault localization effectiveness and reduce their workload. Thus this paper proposes an effective fault localization approach to simulate this interaction via feedback. Based on results obtained from fault localization techniques, this approach utilizes test data generation techniques to automatically produce feedback for interacting with these fault localization techniques, and then iterate this process to improve fault localization performance until a specific stopping condition is satisfied. Experiments on two standard benchmarks demonstrate the significant improvement of our approach over a promising fault localization technique, namely the spectrum-based fault localization technique.

Publication: IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E95-D No.9 pp.2247-2257

Publication Date: 2012/09/01

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Online ISSN: 1745-1361

DOI: 10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247

Type of Manuscript: PAPER

Category: Software Engineering

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Yan LEI, Xiaoguang MAO, Ziying DAI, Dengping WEI, "Effective Fault Localization Approach Using Feedback" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information, vol. E95-D, no. 9, pp. 2247-2257, September 2012, doi: 10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247.
Abstract: At the stage of software debugging, the effective interaction between software debugging engineers and fault localization techniques can greatly improve fault localization performance. However, most fault localization approaches usually ignore this interaction and merely utilize the information from testing. Due to different goals of testing and fault localization, the lack of interaction may lead to the issue of information inadequacy, which can substantially degrade fault localization performance. In addition, human work is costly and error-prone. It is vital to study and simulate the pattern of debugging engineers as they apply their knowledge and experience to this interaction to promote fault localization effectiveness and reduce their workload. Thus this paper proposes an effective fault localization approach to simulate this interaction via feedback. Based on results obtained from fault localization techniques, this approach utilizes test data generation techniques to automatically produce feedback for interacting with these fault localization techniques, and then iterate this process to improve fault localization performance until a specific stopping condition is satisfied. Experiments on two standard benchmarks demonstrate the significant improvement of our approach over a promising fault localization technique, namely the spectrum-based fault localization technique.
URL: https://globals.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247/_p

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@ARTICLE{e95-d_9_2247,
author={Yan LEI, Xiaoguang MAO, Ziying DAI, Dengping WEI, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={Effective Fault Localization Approach Using Feedback},
year={2012},
volume={E95-D},
number={9},
pages={2247-2257},
abstract={At the stage of software debugging, the effective interaction between software debugging engineers and fault localization techniques can greatly improve fault localization performance. However, most fault localization approaches usually ignore this interaction and merely utilize the information from testing. Due to different goals of testing and fault localization, the lack of interaction may lead to the issue of information inadequacy, which can substantially degrade fault localization performance. In addition, human work is costly and error-prone. It is vital to study and simulate the pattern of debugging engineers as they apply their knowledge and experience to this interaction to promote fault localization effectiveness and reduce their workload. Thus this paper proposes an effective fault localization approach to simulate this interaction via feedback. Based on results obtained from fault localization techniques, this approach utilizes test data generation techniques to automatically produce feedback for interacting with these fault localization techniques, and then iterate this process to improve fault localization performance until a specific stopping condition is satisfied. Experiments on two standard benchmarks demonstrate the significant improvement of our approach over a promising fault localization technique, namely the spectrum-based fault localization technique.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247},
ISSN={1745-1361},
month={September},}

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TY - JOUR
TI - Effective Fault Localization Approach Using Feedback
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 2247
EP - 2257
AU - Yan LEI
AU - Xiaoguang MAO
AU - Ziying DAI
AU - Dengping WEI
PY - 2012
DO - 10.1587/transinf.E95.D.2247
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN - 1745-1361
VL - E95-D
IS - 9
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - September 2012
AB - At the stage of software debugging, the effective interaction between software debugging engineers and fault localization techniques can greatly improve fault localization performance. However, most fault localization approaches usually ignore this interaction and merely utilize the information from testing. Due to different goals of testing and fault localization, the lack of interaction may lead to the issue of information inadequacy, which can substantially degrade fault localization performance. In addition, human work is costly and error-prone. It is vital to study and simulate the pattern of debugging engineers as they apply their knowledge and experience to this interaction to promote fault localization effectiveness and reduce their workload. Thus this paper proposes an effective fault localization approach to simulate this interaction via feedback. Based on results obtained from fault localization techniques, this approach utilizes test data generation techniques to automatically produce feedback for interacting with these fault localization techniques, and then iterate this process to improve fault localization performance until a specific stopping condition is satisfied. Experiments on two standard benchmarks demonstrate the significant improvement of our approach over a promising fault localization technique, namely the spectrum-based fault localization technique.
ER -