Fault Localization Using TrustRank Algorithm

Spectrum-based fault localization (SBFL), a widely recognized technique in automated fault localization, has limited effectiveness due to its disregard for the internal information of the program under test suites. To overcome this limitation, a novel TrustRank-based fault localization (TRFL) techni...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xin Fan, Kaisheng Wu, Shuqing Zhang, Li Yu, Wei Zheng, Yun Ge
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-11-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/13/22/12344
Description
Summary:Spectrum-based fault localization (SBFL), a widely recognized technique in automated fault localization, has limited effectiveness due to its disregard for the internal information of the program under test suites. To overcome this limitation, a novel TrustRank-based fault localization (TRFL) technique is introduced. TRFL enhances traditional SBFL by incorporating internal data dependencies of the program under the test suite, thereby providing a more comprehensive analysis. It constructs a node-weighted program execution network and employs the TrustRank algorithm to analyze network centrality and re-rank program entities based on their suspiciousness. Furthermore, a bidirectional TrustRank algorithm (Bi-TRFL) is extended that takes into account the influence relationship between network nodes for more accurate fault localization. When applied to large-scale datasets with real faults, such as Defects4J, TRFL, and Bi-TRFL, it significantly outperforms traditional SBFL methods in fault localization. They demonstrate up to 40% and 13% improvement in Top-1 and Top-5 rankings, respectively, proving their robustness and efficiency with minimal sensitivity to related parameters.
ISSN:2076-3417