@inproceedings{fc25e60a0df04537a9e3f0cb98b6c097,
title = "An Empirical Comparison of Mutant Selection Assessment Metrics",
abstract = "Mutation testing is expensive due to the large number of mutants, a problem typically tackled using selective techniques, thereby raising the fundamental question of how to evaluate the selection process. Existing mutant selection approaches rely on one of two types of metrics (or assessment criteria), one based on adequate test sets and the other based on inadequate test sets. This raises the question as to whether these two metrics are correlated, complementary or substitutable for one another. The tester's faith in mutant selection as well as the validity of previous research work using only one metric rely on the answer to this question, yet it currently remains unanswered. To answer it, we perform qualitative and quantitative comparisons with 104 different projects, consisting of over 600,000 lines of code. Our results indicate a strong connection between the two types of metrics (R2=0.8622 on average). The strategy for dealing with equivalent mutants and test density is observed to have a negligible impact for mutant selection.",
keywords = "Assessment metrics, Mutant selection, Mutation testing",
author = "Zhang, {Jie M.} and Lingming Zhang and Dan Hao and Lu Zhang and Mark Harman",
note = "ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work is supported by the ERC advancedgrant with No. 741278, the Natural Science Foundation of China with No. 61432001 and No. 61872008, and National Science Foundation grants CCF-1566589.; 12th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019 ; Conference date: 22-04-2019 Through 27-04-2019",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
doi = "10.1109/ICSTW.2019.00037",
language = "English (US)",
series = "Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019",
publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",
pages = "90--101",
booktitle = "Proceedings - 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, ICSTW 2019",
address = "United States",
}