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CSFL: Fault Localization on Real Software Bugs Based on the Combination of Context and Spectrum

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Dependable Software Engineering. Theories, Tools, and Applications (SETTA 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 13071))

Abstract

Spectrum-based fault localization has been intensively studied recently. Previous studies have shown that the traditional spectrum-based fault localization applies statistical analysis on the coverage information about failed or passed tests to calculate the suspiciousness of program elements by specific formula. However, the traditional spectrum-based fault localization does not consider the propagation of faults, it only counts whether a single program element is covered by failed or passed tests. In this work, we propose an approach of Context and Spectrum based Fault Localization (CSFL), which combines program context analysis with spectrum for fault localization. Program context can not only improve the effectiveness of fault localization, but also provides help for developers. CSFL has been studied on 414 real bugs from the widely used Defects4J benchmark. The experimental results show that CSFL outperforms the SBFL techniques (e.g., localizing 61 more faults within Top-1). Furthermore, we also investigate the time cost of CSFL.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the reviewers and editors for suggesting improvements and for their helpful comments. This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant No. 61673384.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Engineering Research Center of Mine Digitalization, China University of Mining and Technology, Ministry of Education, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Yue Yan, Shujuan Jiang, Shenggang Zhang & Ying Huang

  2. School of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Yue Yan, Shujuan Jiang, Shenggang Zhang & Ying Huang

Authors
  1. Yue Yan
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  2. Shujuan Jiang
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  3. Shenggang Zhang
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  4. Ying Huang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shujuan Jiang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK

    Shengchao Qin

  2. University of York, York, UK

    Jim Woodcock

  3. Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Wenhui Zhang

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Yan, Y., Jiang, S., Zhang, S., Huang, Y. (2021). CSFL: Fault Localization on Real Software Bugs Based on the Combination of Context and Spectrum. In: Qin, S., Woodcock, J., Zhang, W. (eds) Dependable Software Engineering. Theories, Tools, and Applications. SETTA 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13071. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91265-9_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91265-9_12

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-91265-9

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