Static and Dynamic Techniques for Classifying, Locating, and Fixing Bugs

P0701957分类、定位和修复错误的静态和动态技术测试和调试是软件开发过程中至关重要但众所周知的困难部分。 像C和C++这样具有弱类型系统的语言，使程序员很容易引入内存和类型安全错误，从而加剧了这个问题。 这些错误很难识别，因为实际的错误和症状往往似乎没有逻辑连接。本研究的重点是设计，实施和评估创新的新方法来识别，复制和消除错误。讨论的问题包括：如何确定程序失败是否是由于内存/类型安全错误，以及在这种情况下如何定位错误代码（而不仅仅是出现症状的代码）;给定一个不是由于内存/类型安全bug引起的失败，如何重现该失败，以及如何找到问题的根源。这项工作最具创造性的方面之一是结合互补的技术，以实现强大的协同作用：动态存储器类型推断与静态程序切片相结合，以攻击存储器/类型安全错误，而程序切片与统计错误识别配对，以实现用于发现、再现和修复其他类型错误的新算法。

P0701957Static and Dynamic Techniques for Classifying, Locating, and Fixing Bugs Susan Horwitz and Ben LiblitTesting and debugging are vital but notoriously difficult parts of the software-development process. Languages like C and C++, with weak type systems, exacerbate the problem by making it easy for programmers to introduce memory- and type-safety bugs. These bugs are hard to identify because the actual error and the symptom often seem to have no logical connection.This research focuses on designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative new ways to identify, reproduce, and eliminate bugs. Questions addressed include: How to determine whether a program failure is due to a memory/type-safety bug, and in that case how to locate the buggy code (not just the code where the symptom occurs); given a failure that is not due to a memory/type-safety bug, how to reproduce that failure, and how to find the source of the problem.One of the most creative aspects of the work is the combination of complementary techniques to achieve powerful synergies: dynamic memory type inference is combined with static program slicing to attack memory/type-safety bugs, while program slicing is paired with statistical bug identification to implement new algorithms for finding, reproducing, and repairing other kinds of bugs.