Title
Single-objective versus Multi-Objectivized Optimization for Evolutionary Crash Reproduction
Author
Soltani, M. (TU Delft Software Engineering) 
Derakhshanfar, P. (TU Delft Software Engineering)
Panichella, A. (TU Delft Software Engineering)
Devroey, Xavier (TU Delft Software Engineering)
Zaidman, A.E. (TU Delft Software Engineering)
van Deursen, A. (TU Delft Software Technology)
Contributor
Colanzi, Thelma Elita (editor)
McMinn, Phil (editor)
Department
Software Technology
Date
2018
Abstract
EvoCrash is a recent search-based approach to generate a test case that reproduces reported crashes. The search is guided by a fitness function that uses a weighted sum scalarization to combine three different heuristics: (i) code coverage, (ii) crash coverage and (iii) stack trace similarity. In this study, we propose and investigate two alternatives to the weighted sum scalarization: (i) the simple sum scalarization and (ii) the multi-objectivization, which decomposes the fitness function into several optimization objectives as an attempt to increase test case diversity. We implemented the three alternative optimizations as an extension of EvoSuite, a popular search-based unit test generator, and applied them on 33 real-world crashes. Our results indicate that for complex crashes the weighted sum reduces the test case generation time, compared to the simple sum, while for simpler crashes the effect is the opposite. Similarly, for complex crashes, multi-objectivization reduces test generation time compared to optimizing with the weighted sum; we also observe one crash that can be replicated only by multi-objectivization. Through our manual analysis, we found out that when optimizing the original weighted function gets trapped in local optima, optimization for decomposed objectives improves the search for crash reproduction. Generally, while multi-objectivization is under-explored, our results are promising and encourage further investigations of the approach.
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:ccece8a1-79cd-4303-adca-34a920bf7d14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99241-9_18
Publisher
Springer, Cham
Embargo date
2022-07-04
ISBN
78-3-319-99240-2
Source
Search-Baed Software Engineering - 10th International Symposium, SSBSE 2018 - Proceedings
Event
SSBSE 2018, 2018-09-08 → 2018-09-10, Montpellier, France
Series
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 0302-9743, 11036 LNCS
Bibliographical note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
Part of collection
Institutional Repository
Document type
conference paper
Rights
© 2018 M. Soltani, P. Derakhshanfar, A. Panichella, Xavier Devroey, A.E. Zaidman, A. van Deursen