Using likely invariants for automated software fault localization

Swarup Kumar Sahoo, John Criswell, Chase Geigle, Vikram Adve

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We propose an automatic diagnosis technique for isolating the root cause(s) of software failures. We use likely program invariants, automatically generated using correct inputs that are close to the fault-triggering input, to select a set of candidate program locations which are possible root causes. We then trim the set of candidate root causes using software-implemented dynamic backwards slicing, plus two new filtering heuristics: dependence filtering, and filtering via multiple failing inputs that are also close to the failing input. Experimental results on reported software bugs of three large open-source servers show that we are able to narrow down the number of candidate bug locations to between 5 and 17 program expressions, even in programs that are hundreds of thousands of lines long. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.5 [Software Engineering]: Testing and Debugging-Debugging aids; B.8.1 [Performance and Reliability]: Reliability, Testing, and Fault-Tolerance General Terms Algorithms, Performance, Reliability.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationASPLOS 2013 - 18th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems
Pages139-151
Number of pages13
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event18th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, ASPLOS 2013 - Houston, TX, United States
Duration: Mar 16 2013Mar 20 2013

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems - ASPLOS

Other

Other18th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems, ASPLOS 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityHouston, TX
Period3/16/133/20/13

Keywords

  • Bug diagnosis
  • Debugging
  • Fault localization
  • Invariants
  • Program analysis
  • Root cause
  • Software reliability
  • Testing

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Information Systems
  • Hardware and Architecture

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