OSD: A Source Level Bug Localization Technique Incorporating Control Flow and State Information in Object Oriented Program

TL;DR

This paper introduces a source-level bug localization method for object-oriented embedded programs that uses control flow, state information, and symbolic execution to identify bugs effectively.

Contribution

It presents a novel technique that incorporates object state into class dependence graphs and uses symbolic execution to improve bug localization accuracy.

Findings

Effective bug localization in object-oriented programs.

Incorporates object state into class dependence graphs.

Uses symbolic execution to differentiate failing and passing inputs.

Abstract

Bug localization in object oriented program ha s always been an important issue in softeware engineering. In this paper, I propose a source level bug localization technique for object oriented embedded programs. My proposed technique, presents the idea of debugging an object oriented program in class level, incorporating the object state information into the Class Dependence Graph (ClDG). Given a program (having buggy statement) and an input that fails and others pass, my approach uses concrete as well as symbolic execution to synthesize the passing inputs that marginally from the failing input in their control flow behavior. A comparison of the execution traces of the failing input and the passing input provides necessary clues to the root-cause of the failure. A state trace difference, regarding the respective nodes of the ClDG is obtained, which leads to detect the bug in the program.