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Practical Mutation Testing for Smart Contracts

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Data Privacy Management, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology (DPM 2019, CBT 2019)

Abstract

Solidity smart contracts operate in a hostile environment, which introduces the need for the adequate application of testing techniques to ensure mitigation of the risk of a security incident. Mutation testing is one such technique. It allows for the evaluation of the efficiency of a test suite in detecting faults in a program, allowing developers to both assess and improve the quality of their test suites. In this paper, we propose a mutation testing framework and implement a prototype implementation called Vertigo that targets Solidity contracts for the Ethereum blockchain. We also show that mutation testing can be used to assess the test suites of real-world projects.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    With freeze, we mean the act of blocking users from accessing the currency stored in the contract.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/JoranHonig/vertigo.

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Correspondence to Joran J. Honig .

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Honig, J.J., Everts, M.H., Huisman, M. (2019). Practical Mutation Testing for Smart Contracts. In: Pérez-Solà, C., Navarro-Arribas, G., Biryukov, A., Garcia-Alfaro, J. (eds) Data Privacy Management, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain Technology. DPM CBT 2019 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11737. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31500-9_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31500-9_19

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