FTFL: A Fisher’s test-based approach for fault localization

• Published in: Innovations in systems and software engineering Vol. 17; no. 4; pp. 381 - 405
• Main Authors: Dutta, Arpita, Kunal, Krishna, Srivastava, Saksham Sahai, Shankar, Shubham, Mall, Rajib
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Springer London 01-12-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Artificial Intelligence; Computer Applications; Computer Science; Fault location; Faults; Localization; Original Paper; Software Engineering; Fisher’s test; Fault localization; Program analysis; Debugging
• ISSN: 1614-5046; 1614-5054
• DOI: 10.1007/s11334-021-00403-9

For effective fault localization, we propose a modified Fisher’s test-based statistical method that makes use of test execution results as well as statement coverage information to determine the suspiciousness of each executable statement. Our technique returns a rank list of statements based on their suspiciousness of containing a fault. We also discuss an extension to our proposed approach for localizing programs with multiple faults. This involves partitioning the failed test cases into clusters such that they target different faults. Our experimental studies show that on an average, our proposed fault localization technique requires examination of 37.09% less code than existing techniques for localizing faults.