Mining Software Repositories and Information Visualization for Empirically Robust Testing of Variable Software

挖掘软件存储库和信息可视化，以对可变软件进行实证稳健测试

• 批准号: RGPIN-2017-05421
• 负责人: LopezHerrejon, RobertoErick
• 金额: $ 1.46万
• 依托单位: École de technologie supérieure
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2020-01-01 至 2021-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=711637
• 关键词: Mining; Software; Repositories; Information; Visualization

In modern software systems "one-size fits all" does not hold because they must be customized to fit the needs of diverse and large populations of users. Variable software refers to this type of software systems that can be configured in a large number of ways, and that stem primarily from the adoption of generator-based techniques, full-blown Software Product Line (SPL) approaches, advanced modularization paradigms, highly-configurable systems, or ad hoc reuse practices collectively called clone-and-own. Testing variable software is specially challenging because of the typically large number of configurations that must be tested, a fact that makes it unfeasible to test each individual configuration. Combinatorial Interaction Testing (CIT) has been advocated as a paradigm to address this challenge because of the diverse set of algorithms available which can be exploited to compute representative groups of configurations for testing. There are however several open problems that this research program aims to tackle. First, there is a critical lack of publicly-available case studies of variable software on which to empirically evaluate and validate CIT techniques. Second, there is a stark need of a thorough empirical and comparative evaluation of different CIT techniques that have been applied to variable software. Third, there is no adequate tool support for testing of variable software. The current practice is an ad-hoc collection of uncoordinated and incomplete assortment of plug-ins and stand-alone tools. The objectives for this research program are: 1) Exploit techniques for mining software repositories to gather publicly-available case studies of variable software systems for a thorough empirical evaluation of CIT techniques applied to variable software. 2) Perform a systematic assessment of CIT techniques applied to variable software. 3) Leverage information visualization techniques to better convey the large amount of information present in variable software case studies. 4) Provide robust tool support that allows software engineers to design, implement, and carry out test of variable software. The first objective will be achieved by studying open source projects available in repositories such as GitHub and developing tools that mine configuration and fault data. For the second objective we will systematically collect and catalog tools for CIT testing of variable software, and evaluate them with the case studies' data of the first objective. For the third objective we will explore and evaluate different visualization techniques to convey all the distinct types of information that must be considered for making adequate engineering decisions when testing variable software. For the fourth objective, we will develop a framework that allows flexible addition of testing tools and visualization interfaces to provide software engineers with robust tool support of testing tasks.

在现代软件系统中，“一刀切”的做法是行不通的，因为必须对软件系统进行定制，以适应不同和大量用户的需求。可变软件是指这种类型的软件系统，可以以大量的方式进行配置，并且主要源于采用基于生成器的技术，成熟的软件产品线（SPL）方法，高级模块化范例，高度可配置的系统或统称为克隆和拥有的特设重用实践。测试可变软件特别具有挑战性，因为通常必须测试大量的配置，这使得测试每个单独的配置是不可行的。 组合交互测试（CIT）已被提倡作为一个范例，以解决这一挑战，因为不同的算法集可用于计算代表性的配置组进行测试。然而，有几个开放的问题，这项研究计划的目的是解决。首先，有一个关键缺乏公开的可变软件的经验评估和验证CIT技术的案例研究。其次，迫切需要对应用于可变软件的不同CIT技术进行彻底的实证和比较评估。第三，没有足够的工具支持可变软件的测试。目前的实践是一个不协调和不完整的插件和独立工具分类的临时集合。 该研究计划的目标是： 1)利用挖掘软件存储库的技术，收集公开可用的可变软件系统的案例研究，对应用于可变软件的CIT技术进行全面的实证评估。 2)对应用于可变软件的CIT技术进行系统评估。 3)利用信息可视化技术更好地传达可变软件案例研究中存在的大量信息。 4)提供强大的工具支持，使软件工程师能够设计，实现和执行可变软件的测试。 第一个目标将通过研究GitHub等存储库中的开源项目和开发挖掘配置和故障数据的工具来实现。 对于第二个目标，我们将系统地收集和分类用于可变软件的CIT测试工具，并使用第一个目标的案例研究数据对它们进行评估。对于第三个目标，我们将探索和评估不同的可视化技术，以传达所有不同类型的信息，这些信息在测试可变软件时必须被考虑用于做出适当的工程决策。对于第四个目标，我们将开发一个框架，允许灵活添加测试工具和可视化接口，为软件工程师提供强大的工具支持的测试任务。