Probabilistic fault localisation

Efficient fault localisation is becoming increasingly important as software grows in size and complexity. In this paper we present a new formal framework, denoted probabilistic fault localisation (pfl), and compare it to the established framework of spectrum based fault localisation (sbfl). We forma...

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Main Authors: Landsberg, D, Chockler, H, Kroening, D
Format: Conference item
Published: Springer 2016
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author Landsberg, D
Chockler, H
Kroening, D
author_facet Landsberg, D
Chockler, H
Kroening, D
author_sort Landsberg, D
collection OXFORD
description Efficient fault localisation is becoming increasingly important as software grows in size and complexity. In this paper we present a new formal framework, denoted probabilistic fault localisation (pfl), and compare it to the established framework of spectrum based fault localisation (sbfl). We formally prove that pfl satisfies some desirable properties which sbfl does not, empirically demonstrate that pfl is signifuicantly more effective at finding faults than all known sbfl measures in large scale experimentation, and show pfl has comparable efficiency. Results show that the user investigates 37% more code (and finds a fault immediately in 27% fewer cases) when using the best performing sbfl measures, compared to the pfl framework. Furthermore, we show that it is theoretically impossible to design strictly rational sbfl measures that outperform pfl techniques on a large set of benchmarks.
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spelling oxford-uuid:f89f78f4-bf8f-4ee5-b6a3-66e5f38e3bec2022-03-27T12:51:46ZProbabilistic fault localisationConference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:f89f78f4-bf8f-4ee5-b6a3-66e5f38e3becSymplectic Elements at OxfordSpringer2016Landsberg, DChockler, HKroening, DEfficient fault localisation is becoming increasingly important as software grows in size and complexity. In this paper we present a new formal framework, denoted probabilistic fault localisation (pfl), and compare it to the established framework of spectrum based fault localisation (sbfl). We formally prove that pfl satisfies some desirable properties which sbfl does not, empirically demonstrate that pfl is signifuicantly more effective at finding faults than all known sbfl measures in large scale experimentation, and show pfl has comparable efficiency. Results show that the user investigates 37% more code (and finds a fault immediately in 27% fewer cases) when using the best performing sbfl measures, compared to the pfl framework. Furthermore, we show that it is theoretically impossible to design strictly rational sbfl measures that outperform pfl techniques on a large set of benchmarks.
spellingShingle Landsberg, D
Chockler, H
Kroening, D
Probabilistic fault localisation
title Probabilistic fault localisation
title_full Probabilistic fault localisation
title_fullStr Probabilistic fault localisation
title_full_unstemmed Probabilistic fault localisation
title_short Probabilistic fault localisation
title_sort probabilistic fault localisation
work_keys_str_mv AT landsbergd probabilisticfaultlocalisation
AT chocklerh probabilisticfaultlocalisation
AT kroeningd probabilisticfaultlocalisation