Automatic detection of infeasible paths in large-scale program based on program summaries

The existence of infeasible paths in a program reduces the coverage of test cases and causes a waste of valuable testing resources. Detecting infeasible paths allows for focusing testing resources on feasible paths. This paper introduces a method for detecting infeasible paths based on program summaries. Our proposed method partitions the program into sequential statements, conditional statements and loop statements, and automatically generates statement summaries and function summaries. It analyzes the summaries to extract the path constraints and determines the feasibility of paths. We implemented a detection tool named DTSIP based on this method, and conducted experiments using a set of benchmark programs and open source projects. The results confirm the effectiveness of our method in detecting infeasible paths. It can detect both intraprocedural and interprocedural infeasible paths, demonstrating its broad applicability. Our method overcomes challenges associated with analyzing complex paths, achieving efficient feasibility determination while reducing processing time.