An empirical study of fault detection by static units-consistency analysis
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Authors
Browning, Judy A.
Subjects
Software testing
Static analysis
Software tools
Software experiments
Fault detection
Units-consistency analysis
Dimensional analysis
Static analysis
Software tools
Software experiments
Fault detection
Units-consistency analysis
Dimensional analysis
Advisors
Shimeall, Timothy
Date of Issue
1991-09
Date
September 1991
Publisher
Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School
Language
en_US
Abstract
With increasing costs involved in software development, testing has become a more critical aspect of the software engineering process. Automatic methods, such as various static analysis techniques, may offer economic fault detection. This thesis analyzes a static analysis technique that allows users to associate units with variables in computer programs and to check that data transformations manipulate units in a consistent manner. A tool is designed and applied for this analysis. Its performance is measured by comparing the results in a previous study of other testing techniques in detecting faults. The results reveal that this technique consistently detected a narrow class of faults including some faults not found by other testing techniques. The results also show that application of this technique during the requirements and design phase of software development can identify faults associated with units-inconsistency early and reduce costs involved in developing a piece of software.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Department of Computer Science
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
85 p.
Citation
Distribution Statement
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.