Towards a Systematic Process to Produce High-Quality Software Fixes

迈向生成高质量软件修复的系统化流程

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-07007
• 负责人: Yang, Jinqiu
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: Concordia University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=750130
• 关键词: Towards; Systematic; Process; Produce; Quality

Software bugs are prevalent in every software application. Developers spend a tremendous amount of time and effort in fixing software bugs. Recent advances in automated program repair techniques show a promising direction in providing machine-generated software fixes to elevate the burden of manual debugging. Software fixes, either manually or machine-generated, which are deliverables of intense software quality-assurance activities, play an important role in improving software quality. However, a significant portion of software fixes are incorrect: software fixes may not resolve the problems (e.g., software failures) completely, or may introduce new problems (e.g., the software fix itself contains bugs). Low-quality software fixes are produced by fixers (i.e., developers or automated program repair techniques). Unfortunately, current quality-assurance research and techniques are ineffective in detecting the low-quality software fixes and further providing guidance to achieve better-quality software fixes. The goal of this proposal is to provide a systematic process for producing high-quality software fixes. The proposal has three research objectives (ROs). RO1 - Obtaining a deep understanding of low-quality software fixes in software applications from different domains. Our work will focus on the problems in software fixes and refinement efforts that developers make to fix such problems. Also, our work will provide a deep understanding of the reasons why state-of-the-art bug detection techniques fail to find the problems in software fixes. RO2 - Helping fixers detect and improve low-quality software fixes. My students and I will design novel static and dynamic bug detection techniques that target the problems in low-quality software fixes. Such work will provide invaluable warnings to developers regarding potential problems in the to-be-committed software fixes. Also, we will build techniques to utilize the RO1 findings to provide refinement suggestions to produce high-quality software fixes. Furthermore, RO3 - Providing a generic feedback-oriented framework that integrates the detection and improvement of low-quality software fixes (RO2) into the current workflow of bug-fixers. The proposed framework will provide an iterative process to guide fixers to produce high-quality software fixes especially when the initial software fixes are insufficiently refined by RO2 (e.g., due to inadequate testing oracles and incomplete refinement efforts). The outcome of this research will provide complete solution to assist developers with producing high-quality software fixes. The proposed techniques will significantly improve software quality and reduce software development costs among Canadian companies. The proposed research will also train five highly qualified personnel (HQP) and allow them to contribute to state-of-the-art Software Engineering research and practice.

软件错误在每个软件应用程序中都很普遍。开发人员花费了大量的时间和精力来修复软件错误。自动程序修复技术的最新进展表明，在提供机器生成的软件修复以提高手动调试的负担方面，有一个很有前途的方向。无论是手动还是机器生成的软件修复，都是密集的软件质量保证活动的交付成果，在提高软件质量方面发挥着重要作用。然而，很大一部分软件修复是不正确的：软件修复可能不能完全解决问题(例如，软件故障)，或者可能会引入新的问题(例如，软件修复本身包含错误)。低质量的软件修复是由修复者(即开发人员或自动程序修复技术)产生的。不幸的是，当前的质量保证研究和技术在检测低质量的软件修复和进一步提供指导以实现更高质量的软件修复方面无效。该提案的目标是提供一个系统的流程来生成高质量的软件修复程序。该提案有三个研究目标(ROS)。RO1-深入了解来自不同领域的软件应用程序中的低质量软件修复。我们的工作将集中在软件修复中的问题和开发人员为修复此类问题所做的改进工作上。此外，我们的工作将提供对最先进的错误检测技术无法发现软件修复中的问题的原因的深入理解。RO2-帮助修复程序检测和改进低质量的软件修复。我和我的学生将设计新的静态和动态错误检测技术，以针对低质量软件修复中的问题。这些工作将向开发人员提供关于待提交的软件修复中的潜在问题的宝贵警告。此外，我们还将构建利用RO1发现的技术来提供改进建议，以生成高质量的软件修复程序。此外，R03-提供面向反馈的通用框架，将低质量软件修复程序(RO2)的检测和改进集成到当前的错误修复程序工作流中。拟议的框架将提供一个迭代过程，以指导修复者生成高质量的软件修复，特别是当初始软件修复未被RO2充分细化时(例如，由于测试预言不充分和未完成的细化工作)。这项研究的结果将提供完整的解决方案，帮助开发人员生成高质量的软件修复程序。拟议的技术将显著提高软件质量，并降低加拿大公司的软件开发成本。拟议的研究还将培训五名高素质的人员(HQP)，并允许他们为最先进的软件工程研究和实践做出贡献。