Software vaccination: An artificial immune system approach to mutation testing

Peter May*, Keith Mander, Jon Timmis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

9 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Over time programming languages develop, paradigms evolve, development teams change. The effect of this is that test suites wear out, therefore these also need to evolve. Mutation testing is an effective fault-based testing approach, but it is computationally expensive. Any evolutionary based approach to this process needs to simultaneously manage execution costs. In this conceptual paper we adopt immune systems as a metaphor for the basis of an alternative mutation testing system. It is envisaged that through monitoring of the development environment, a minimal set of effective mutations and test cases can be developed - a 'vaccine' - that can be applied to the software development process to protect it from errors - from infections.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
EditorsJon Timmis, Peter Bentley, Emma Hart
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages81-92
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)3540407669, 9783540407669
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2003

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume2787
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Keywords

  • clonal selection
  • original program
  • human immune system
  • system under test
  • software development process

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