CRII: SHF: General, Precise and Accurate Fault Localization

Locating faults is one of the (if not the) most expensive tasks in software

development. Given the complexity of software systems, identifying a fault is

like searching for a needle in a haystack. This project explores a general

approach that will aid programmers in locating faults in software systems. The

goal is to develop a methodology for pinpointing at the exact fault locations

in a program, based on evidences collected from program executions. This

project can greatly reduce software development cost. More broadly, this

project can advance the scientific knowledge of fault localization in general.

Advances that aid programmer in debugging will also make computer science

education more accessible to the public.

The project explores novel techniques for general, precise and accurate fault

localization. The new method is applicable to various representations of

program execution with different granularities, using a novel execution trace

model. Based on probabilistic inference, it accurately pinpoints at the most

likely fault locations in a program, rather than reporting every location that

might contribute to a failure, or reporting a code fragment that is highly

correlated with failures. The practicality of this approach will be

demonstrated on complex real-world systems.