Title
All-uses vs mutation testing: an experimental comparison of effectiveness
Abstract
The effectiveness of a test data adequacy criterion for a given program and specification is the probability that a test set satisfying the criterion will expose a fault. Experiments were performed to compare the effectiveness of the mutation testing and all-uses test data adequacy criteria at various coverage levels, for randomly generated test sets. Large numbers of test sets were generated and executed, and for each, the proportion of mutants killed or def-use associations covered was measured. This data was used to estimate and compare the effectiveness of the criteria. The results were mixed: at the highest coverage levels considered, mutation was more effective than all-uses for five of the nine subjects, all-uses was more effective than mutation for two subjects, and there was no clear winner for two subjects. However, mutation testing was much more expensive than all-uses. The relationship between coverage and effectiveness for fixed-sized test sets was also explored and was found to be nonlinear and, in many cases, nonmonotonic.
Year
DOI
Venue
1997
10.1016/S0164-1212(96)00154-9
Journal of Systems and Software
Keywords
Field
DocType
all-uses vs mutation testing,experimental comparison,mutation testing,satisfiability
Computer science,Mutation testing,Algorithm,Real-time computing,Test data,Program analysis,Statistics,Test set
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
38
3
The Journal of Systems & Software
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
135
5.68
19
Authors
3
Search Limit
100135
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Phyllis G. Frankl172354.98
Stewart N. Weiss227023.85
Cang Hu31355.68