CAREER:VARIATIONAL EXECUTION

许多软件系统可以通过启用或禁用配置选项来配置。由于选项可以灵活组合，配置空间呈指数级增长。因此，高度可配置的系统是出了名的难以测试。虽然许多选项的组合工作得很好，但特定的配置可能会暴露出选项之间交互时出现的错误或令人惊讶的行为。由于巨大的搜索空间，交互很难被发现。事实上，由于没有完整和可靠的技术来研究大尺度系统中的相互作用，因此在实践中对相互作用知之甚少。本文探索了一种新的程序执行技术——变分执行，以有效地执行大量配置或相似的程序，并检查这些执行之间的差异。可变执行将有助于理解和检测高度可配置软件系统中配置选项之间的相互作用，并有助于更好的质量保证和开发方法。它将改变测试可配置系统的方式，包括今天的大多数系统。s终端用户软件、软件生态系统和关键基础设施软件，如SSL库和数据库。对现实世界系统中交互的洞察填补了我们对交互理解的重要空白，与教学软件设计和质量保证相关。此外，它将在探索交互和更广泛的软件工程目的的大型搜索空间方面取得进展，包括高阶突变测试、程序修复和敏感性分析。

Many software systems can be configured by enabling or disablingconfiguration options. As options can be combined flexibly, theconfiguration space grows exponentially. Therefore highly-configurable systems are notoriously hard to test. While many combinations of options work well, specific configurations may expose faulty or surprising behavior emerging from interactions among options. Due to the huge search space, interactions are difficult to find. In fact, since no complete and sound techniques exist to study interactions in large scale systems, little is known about interactions in practice. This researchexplores a novel program execution technique, variational execution, to efficiently execute a large number of configurations or similar programs and inspect the differences among those executions. Variational execution will aid understanding and detection of interactions among configuration options in highly-configurable software systems and contribute to better quality assurance and development methods. It will transform the way to test configurable systems, including most of today?s end-user software, software ecosystems, and criticalinfrastructure software, such as SSL libraries and databases. The insights gained into interactions in real-world systems fill an important gap in our understanding of interactions, relevant for teaching software design and quality assurance. Additionally, it will enable advances in exploring interactions and large search spaces for broader software engineering purposes, including higher-order mutation testing, program repair, and sensitivity analysis.