Instrumentation strategies by program simulation

• Grant number: 06/04956-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: February 01, 2007
• End date: January 31, 2008
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Computing Methodologies and Techniques
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Lordello Chaim
• Grantee: Anthony Accioly
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Software testing is one of the most time-consuming activities performed by programmers. Although effective testing techniques --- such as data-flow testing --- exist, testing is often carried out in "ad hoc" way. One of the problems is the cost to instrument programs in order to determine the coverage of the tests in real settings. In real settings, programs might execute millions of statements, and to determine the coverage is frequently infeasible. New strategies to instrument object code have been proposed to address this problem. Nevertheless, the comparison of these strategies is a difficult task since it is required to manipulate object code to implement them. In this project it is proposed the development of a simulator of program instrumentation strategies. The idea is to simulate the procedures of these strategies without implementing them in object code. We intend to compare the different strategies, and their variants, to determine the most cost-efficient one to support testing and debugging based on data-flow analysis.