Learning How to Search: Generating Exception-Triggering Tests Through Adaptive Fitness Function Selection

Search-based test generation is guided by feedback from one or more fitness functions—scoring functions that judge solution optimality. Choosing informative fitness functions is crucial to meeting the goals of a tester. Unfortunately, many goals—such as forcing the class-under-test to throw exceptions— do not have a known fitness function formulation. We propose that meeting such goals requires treating fitness function identification as a secondary optimization step. An adaptive algorithm that can vary the selection of fitness functions could adjust its selection throughout the generation process to maximize goal attainment, based on the current population of test suites. To test this hypothesis, we have implemented two reinforcement learning algorithms in the EvoSuite framework, and used these algorithms to dynamically set the fitness functions used during generation.We have evaluated our framework, EvoSuiteFIT, on a set of 386 real faults. EvoSuiteFIT discovers and retains more exception-triggering input and produces suites that detect a variety of faults missed by the other techniques. The ability to adjust fitness functions allows EvoSuiteFIT to make strategic choices that efficiently produce more effective test suites

Systems And Methods For Visualization Of Exception Handling Constructs

Disclosed are various embodiments for visualization of exception-handling constructs. In one embodiment, among others, a system includes at least one computing device; a program maintained in a memory accessible to the at least one computing device; and logic executable in the at least one computing device configured to analyze the program to determine exception-handling information; generate a graphical user interface based upon the exception-handling information; and provide the graphical user interface for display on a display device.Georgia Tech Research Corporatio

Implementación de estrategia para manejo de excepciones basada en componentes: las fachadas de seguridad

Los mecanismos de manejo de excepciones fueron concebidos como un marco de trabajo para implementar tolerancia a fallos en sistemas de software. Más de dos tercios del código de una aplicación, está dedicado a la detección y manejo de errores y excepciones. A menudo, los mecanismos de manejo de excepciones, son mal empleados o se abusa de ellos; el diseño de una estrategia efectiva se considera una tarea difícil puesto que: aumenta considerablemente la complejidad de los sistemas, plantea conflictos con algunos de los principios del diseño orientado a objetos, no existen pautas eficientes, entre otras causas. Por tanto, el manejo de errores y excepciones, es uno de los temas más importantes de la arquitectura del software y, uno de los aspectos más cruciales pero menos tenido en cuenta, en el análisis y diseño de sistemas críticos. Aplicando el concepto de proxies dinámicos, se investigan los detalles de implementación de una simple aunque interesante, estrategia basada en componentes para el manejo de excepciones, disponible en la literatura: las fachadas de seguridad; cuya descripción original carece de información pormenorizada. Las fachadas de seguridad constituyen un nuevo enfoque, que introduce una arquitectura y directrices, estableciendo un framework para el manejo de excepcionesException handling mechanisms were conceived as a means for incorporating fault tolerance into software systems. More than two thirds of the application’s code is dedicated to detecting and handling errors and exceptions. These exception handling systems are often misuse and (or) abused. The design of exception handling in an application is seen as a difficult task because: introduce significant complexity, may conflict with many of the goals of object oriented design, suffers from lack of guidelines, among other things. For these reasons the handling of exceptions and errors is one of the major subject of the software architecture and one of the most critical, but overlooked aspect of critical system design and analysis. I will apply the concept of dynamic proxy to implement a simple but interesting exception handling design approach called safety facades, available in the software architecture literature. The article describing security façades is light on details. The security façade form a new approach that introduce and architecture and best practices to build a viable framework for systems with exception handling.Workshop de Ingeniería de Software y Bases de Datos (WISBD)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Implementación de estrategia para manejo de excepciones basada en componentes: las fachadas de seguridad

Los mecanismos de manejo de excepciones fueron concebidos como un marco de trabajo para implementar tolerancia a fallos en sistemas de software. Más de dos tercios del código de una aplicación, está dedicado a la detección y manejo de errores y excepciones. A menudo, los mecanismos de manejo de excepciones, son mal empleados o se abusa de ellos; el diseño de una estrategia efectiva se considera una tarea difícil puesto que: aumenta considerablemente la complejidad de los sistemas, plantea conflictos con algunos de los principios del diseño orientado a objetos, no existen pautas eficientes, entre otras causas. Por tanto, el manejo de errores y excepciones, es uno de los temas más importantes de la arquitectura del software y, uno de los aspectos más cruciales pero menos tenido en cuenta, en el análisis y diseño de sistemas críticos. Aplicando el concepto de proxies dinámicos, se investigan los detalles de implementación de una simple aunque interesante, estrategia basada en componentes para el manejo de excepciones, disponible en la literatura: las fachadas de seguridad; cuya descripción original carece de información pormenorizada. Las fachadas de seguridad constituyen un nuevo enfoque, que introduce una arquitectura y directrices, estableciendo un framework para el manejo de excepcionesException handling mechanisms were conceived as a means for incorporating fault tolerance into software systems. More than two thirds of the application’s code is dedicated to detecting and handling errors and exceptions. These exception handling systems are often misuse and (or) abused. The design of exception handling in an application is seen as a difficult task because: introduce significant complexity, may conflict with many of the goals of object oriented design, suffers from lack of guidelines, among other things. For these reasons the handling of exceptions and errors is one of the major subject of the software architecture and one of the most critical, but overlooked aspect of critical system design and analysis. I will apply the concept of dynamic proxy to implement a simple but interesting exception handling design approach called safety facades, available in the software architecture literature. The article describing security façades is light on details. The security façade form a new approach that introduce and architecture and best practices to build a viable framework for systems with exception handling.Workshop de Ingeniería de Software y Bases de Datos (WISBD)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Uma ferramenta de análise de robustez para a melhoria da qualidade de sistemas de software

A software product is considered reliable if it can deliver its functions the way they were defined. Robustness is a sub-attribute of reliability and concerns the software's ability to respond specifically to external defects. The exception handling mechanisms should ensure the robustness of the systems. However, in practice it is difficult to achieve such a goal, either by misuse of existing models, either by deficiency of the models themselves. Moreover, it is clear that developers dealing exceptions properly end up having serious problems in productivity, while its neglect although more productive, tends to generate less reliable systems and subsequent rising cost of post-production. Some real disasters were directly related to the neglect of exception handling, for example: the case of the European Ariane 5 rocket that self-destructed soon after launch, and the radar system Brazilian X-4000 which was nominated as one of the causes the crash of Gol Flight 1907 in 2006. In this context, this work presents a static analysis tool exceptional flow eFlowMining, focused on improving the robustness of applications. NET. It allows the developer: view metrics collected on the exceptional behavior; analyze the exceptional flow via a graphical representation as a tree; identify possible bugs between different versions of the same application, and quickly locate the types of exceptions thrown and their their handlers. All information collected is stored in databases to enable searches and comparisons of the analyzes. The evaluation tool was divided into two phases. The first aimed to show the consistency and accuracy of the tool relative to the different programming languages supported by the platform. NET. The second assessed how the tool helped developers identify possible defects between different versions of the same software system.Um produto de software é considerado confiável quando ele consegue entregar suas funcionalidades da forma como elas foram definidas. Robustez é um sub-atributo de confiabilidade e diz respeito à capacidade do software em reagir especificamente a defeitos externos. Os mecanismos de tratamento de exceções deveriam garantir a robustez dos sistemas. Entretanto, na prática é difícil atingir tal objetivo, seja por mau uso dos modelos existentes, seja pela deficiência dos próprios modelos. Além disso, percebe-se que os desenvolvedores que tratam as exceções de maneira adequada acabam tendo problemas sérios de produtividade, ao passo que o seu negligenciamento embora seja mais produtivo, tende a gerar sistemas menos confiáveis e com subseqüente aumento do custo de pós-produção. Alguns desastres reais tiveram relação direta com o negligenciamento do tratamento de exceções, por exemplo: o caso do foguete europeu Ariane 5 que se autodestruiu logo após o lançamento, e do sistema do radar brasileiro X-4000 que foi indicado como uma das causas do acidente aéreo do vôo GOL 1907 em 2006. Nesse contexto, este trabalho apresenta a ferramenta de análise estática do fluxo excepcional eFlowMining, focada na melhoria da robustez de aplicações .NET. Ela permite que o desenvolvedor: visualize métricas coletadas sobre o comportamento excepcional; analise o fluxo excepcional através de uma representação gráfica em forma de árvore; identifique possíveis bugs entre diferentes versões da mesma aplicação; e localize de forma rápida os tipos de exceções lançadas e seus respectivos tratadores. Todas as informações coletadas são armazenadas em bancos de dados a fim de possibilitar consultas e comparações das análises realizadas. A avaliação da ferramenta foi dividida em duas fases. A primeira teve o objetivo de mostrar a compatibilidade e a precisão da ferramenta em relação às diferentes linguagens de programação suportadas pela plataforma .NET. A segunda avaliou como a ferramenta ajudou os desenvolvedores a identificar possíveis defeitos entre diferentes versões do mesmo sistema de software

Aspect structure of compilers

Compilers are among the most widely-studied pieces of software; and, modularizing these valuable artifacts is a recurring theme in research. However, modularization of cross-cutting concerns in compilers is not yet well explored. Even today, implementation of one compiler concern scatters across and tangles with the implementation of several other concerns, thereby leading to a mismatch between different compiler modules and the operations they represent. Essentially, current compiler implementations fail to explicitly identify the control dependencies of different phases, and separately characterize the actions to execute during those phases. As a result, information about their program-execution path remains non-intuitive: it stays hidden within the program structure and cuts-across several phase implementations. Consequently, this makes compiler designs and artifacts difficult to comprehend, maintain and reuse. Such limitations occur primarily as a result of the inability of mainstream object-oriented languages, such as Java, to organize the cross-cutting concerns into clean modular units. This thesis demonstrates how such modularity-issues in compilers can be addressed with the help of a relatively new, yet powerful programming paradigm called aspect-oriented programming