Title: A Synergistic Analysis Method for Explaining Failed Regression Tests

Speaker: Prof. Zijiang Yang (Western Michigan University, USA)

        https://www.cs.wmich.edu/~zijiang/

Time: 8nd May 2015, 10:00

Venue: Seminar Room (334), Level 3, Building 5, Institute of Software, CAS

　  Abstract: Experience has shown that software updates often introduce new bugs. Therefore, it is good practice to conduct regression testing during software development, which determines whether new bugs have been introduced into the code with previously working functionality. However, detecting these failures is only the first step. The more challenging task is to identify the relevant code changes and explain why these changes lead to the failure.  

　  We propose a new automated debugging method for regression testing based on a synergistic application of both dynamic and semantic analysis.  Our method takes a failure-inducing test input, a buggy program, and an earlier correct version of the same program, and computes a minimal set of code changes responsible for the failure, as well as explaining how the code changes lead to the failure. Although this problem has been the subject of intensive research in recent years, existing methods are rarely adopted by developers in practice since they do not produce sufficiently accurate fault explanations for real applications. Our new method is significantly faster and more accurate than existing methods for explaining failed regression tests in real applications, due to its synergistic analysis framework that iteratively applies both dynamic analysis and a constraint solver based semantic analysis to leverage their complementary strengths. We have implemented our new method in a software tool based on the LLVM compiler and the KLEE symbolic virtual machine.  Our experiments on Linux applications show that the new method is both efficient and effective in practice. A paper based on this work has been accepted at ICSE’15. This project is in collaboration with Qiuping Yi, Dr. Jian Liu and Dr. Chen Zhao at ISCAS. 

　　簡歷：楊子江博士現任西密西根大學計算機科學系副教授。他2003年從美國賓夕法尼亞大學計算機與信息科學系獲得博士學位，1999年從美國賴斯大學計算機科學系獲得碩士學位，1996年中國科技大學計算機系獲得學士學位并獲得該校最高榮譽郭沫若獎學金。楊子江博士目前主要從事軟件測試及驗證領域的研究。迄今為止發表了六十余篇論文及十項美國專利。他獲得2008年度ACM TODAES 最佳期刊論文獎, 2010 PADTAD最佳會議論文獎，2008年西密西根大學工學院研究成就獎，和2015年谷歌CS Engagement獎。楊子江博士是國際電子電氣工程師協會（IEEE）資深會員，并擔任過密西根大學電子與計算機科學系訪問教授，NEC 公司美國研發中心科研顧問，美國自然科學基金評委，美國宇航局博士后評委，美國能源部科技企業基金評委等職。