Improving spectral-based fault localization using static analysis

Abstract

Debugging is crucial for producing reliable software. One of the effective bug localization techniques is spectral-based fault localization (SBFL). It helps to locate a buggy statement by applying an evaluation metric to program spectra and ranking program components on the basis of the score it computes. SBFL is an example of a dynamic analysis – an analysis of computer program that is performed by executing it with sufficient number of test cases. Static analysis, on the other hand, is performed in a non-runtime environment. We introduce a weighting technique by combining these two kinds of program analysis. Static analysis is performed to categorize program statements into different class..