CAREER:VARIATIONAL EXECUTION

许多软件系统可以通过启用或禁用配置选项进行配置。由于选项可以灵活组合，因此配置空间呈指数级增长。因此，众所周知，高度可配置的系统很难测试。虽然许多选项组合运行良好，但特定的配置可能会暴露选项之间的交互产生的错误或令人惊讶的行为。由于搜索空间巨大，互动很难找到。事实上，由于没有完整和完善的技术来研究大规模系统中的相互作用，人们对实践中的相互作用知之甚少。本研究探索了一种新的程序执行技术--变分执行，以有效地执行大量的配置或类似的程序，并检查这些执行之间的差异。变化执行将有助于理解和检测高度可配置的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，包括今天大多数的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。对真实世界系统中交互的洞察填补了我们对交互的理解的一个重要空白，与教学软件设计和质量保证相关。此外，它还将为更广泛的软件工程目的，包括高阶突变测试、程序修复和敏感性分析，在探索交互作用和大搜索空间方面取得进展。

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.