Evaluation of mutation testing for object-oriented programs

Abstract

The effectiveness of mutation testing depends heavily on the types of faults that the mutation operators are designed to represent. Thus, the quality of the mutation operators is key to mutation testing. Although, mutation operators for object-oriented languages have previously been presented, little research has been done to show the usefulness of the class mutation operators. To assess the usefulness of class mutation operators, we conducted two empirical studies. In the first study, we examine the number and kinds of mutants that are generated for object-oriented programs. In the second study, we investigate the way in which class mutation operators model faults that are not detected by traditional mutation testing. We conducted our studies using a well-known object-oriented system, BCEL.