USING HIGHER ORDER MUTATION FOR REDUCING EQUIVALENT MUTANTS IN MUTATION TESTING

Authors

  • Aderonke Olusola Akinde*

Abstract

Customarily, first order mutants are used for mutation testing, but the first order mutants have proved to cost a lot computationally and in terms of human effort over the years. This is mainly as a result of the very large number of mutants that will be generated and the large proportion of equivalent mutants. This has hindered the software industry at large from applying it at the testing phase of Software Development Life Cycle, SDLC, thereby forfeiting the advantages that can be derived when mutation testing is employed. Various techniques have been introduced by researchers in order to curb the setbacks. Higher order mutation testing was later introduced, and it was proposed to be more effective in dealing with the mutation testing challenge. Although higher order mutation generates more numbers of mutants than first order mutation, the number of equivalent mutants produced is largely reduced. This paper reports the result of an empirical study for validating if truly higher order mutation reduces the number of equivalent mutants generated depending on the order of mutation by comparing the degree of equivalent in the second order and random order mutation. The empirical analysis made use of 2 benchmark programs and 1 self-written program and the percentage equivalence of second order and random order mutants were analyzed using the equivalence ratio, ER. A huge reduction in the number of equivalent mutants was realized as the order of mutation increased.

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Published

2013-10-11