Isolating relevant component interactions with JINSI

ABSTRACT

When a component in a large system fails, developers encounter two problems: (1) reproducing the failure, and (2) investigating the causes of such a failure. Our JINSI tool lets developers capture and replay the interactions between a component and its environment, thus allowing for reproducing the failure at will. In addition, JINSI uses delta debugging to automatically isolate the subset of the interactions that is relevant for the failure. In a first study, JINSI has successfully isolated the relevant interaction of a JAVA component: "Out of the 32 interactions with the <VendingMachine> (BOB - wasn't sure about this one)component, seven interactions suffice to produce the failure.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.5 Testing and Debugging
          Subjects: Debugging aids

General Terms:
Algorithms

Keywords:
automated debugging, capture and replay techniques