Locating regression bugs

Dor Nir*, Shmuel Tyszberowicz, Amiram Yehudai

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

A regression bug is a bug which causes a feature that worked correctly to stop working after a certain event (system upgrade, system patching, daylight saving time switch, etc.). Very often an encompassed bug fix included in a patch causes the regression bug. Regression bugs are an annoying and painful phenomena in the software development process, requiring a great deal of effort to find. Many tools have been developed in order to find the existence of such bugs. However, a great deal of manual work is still needed to find the exact source-code location that caused a regression bug. In this paper we present the CodePsychologist, a tool which assists the programmer to locate source code segments that caused a given regression bug. The CodePsychologist goes beyond current tools, that identify all the lines of code that changed since the feature in question worked properly (with the help of a Source Control Tool). The CodePsychologist uses various heuristics to select the lines most likely to be the cause of the error, from these often large number of lines of code. This reduces the fixing time of regression bugs. It allows a quick response to field errors that need an immediate correction.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHardware and Software
Subtitle of host publicationVerification and Testing - Third International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2007, Proceedings
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages218-234
Number of pages17
ISBN (Print)3540779647, 9783540779643
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
Event3rd International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2007 - Haifa, Israel
Duration: 23 Oct 200725 Oct 2007

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume4899 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference3rd International Haifa Verification Conference, HVC 2007
Country/TerritoryIsrael
CityHaifa
Period23/10/0725/10/07

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