The identification of software failure regions
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Authors
Bolchoz, John Manning
Subjects
Software testing
Code analysis
data selection
software failure region
reachability
error generation
error propagation
masking
Code analysis
data selection
software failure region
reachability
error generation
error propagation
masking
Advisors
Shimeall, Timothy J.
Date of Issue
1990-06
Date
June 1990
Publisher
Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School
Language
Abstract
In these days of spiralling software costs and the proliferation of computers, software testing during development is now recognized as a critical aspect of the software engineering process, an aspect that must be improved in terms of cost and timeliness. This thesis describes one method that may guide software testing by analyzing the regions of input associated with each fault as it is detected. These software failure regions are defined and a method of failure region analysis is described in detail. The thesis describes how this analysis may be used to detect non-obviously redundant test cases. A preliminary examination of the manual analysis method is performed with a set of programs from a prior reliability experiment. Based on faults discovered during the previous experiment, this thesis defines the reachability conditions, the error generation conditions, and the conditions in which an error is not masked by later processing. The manual analysis of failure regions can be a difficult process, with difficulty dependent on program size, program complexity, and the size of the input data space. Program constructs and events that simplify the analysis process are also described. The thesis explains variable communication and the effects of vertical and horizontal contamination. The thesis also describes the indirect benefits of performing failure region analysis. Finally, there are several open questions raised by this research, and these questions are presented as ideas for future research.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Department of Computer Science
Organization
Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.)
Identifiers
NPS Report Number
Sponsors
Funder
Format
x, 88 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.