Weight prioritized slicing based on constraint logic programming for fault localization

Fault localization, a technique to fix and ensure the dependability of software, is rapidly becoming infeasible due to the increasing scale and complexity of multilingual programs. Compared to other fault localization techniques, slicing can directly narrow the range of the code which needed checkin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 15; no. 4; p. e0231331
Main Authors: Ren, Shengbing, Zhou, Weijia, Zhou, Haiwei, Xia, Lei
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 10.04.2020
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Algorithms
Biology and Life Sciences
Computer and Information Sciences
Computer science
Computers
Dependence
Engineering
Engineering and Technology
Fault location
Localization
Logic programming
Methods
Physical Sciences
Probability
Research and Analysis Methods
Researchers
Slicing
Social Sciences
Weight
China
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Fault localization, a technique to fix and ensure the dependability of software, is rapidly becoming infeasible due to the increasing scale and complexity of multilingual programs. Compared to other fault localization techniques, slicing can directly narrow the range of the code which needed checking by abstracting a program into a reduced one by deleting irrelevant parts. Only minority slicing methods take into account the fact that the probability of different statements leading to failure is different. Moreover, no existing prioritized slicing techniques can work on multilingual programs. In this paper, we propose a new technique called weight prioritized slicing(WP-Slicing), an improved static slicing technique based on constraint logic programming, to help the programmer locate the fault quickly and precisely. WP-Slicing first converts the original program into logic facts. Then it extracts dependences from the facts, computes the static backward slice and calculates the statements' weight. Finally, WP-Slicing provides the slice in a suggested check sequence by weighted-sorting. By comparing it's slice time and locate effort with three pre-exsiting slicing techniques on five real world C projects, we prove that WP-Slicing can locate fault within less time and effort, which means WP-Slicing is more effectively.
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Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0231331