relifix: Automated Repair of Software Regressions

Abstract

Regression occurs when code changes introduce failures in previously passing test cases. As software evolves, regressions may be introduced. Fixing regression errors manually is time-consuming and error-prone. We propose an approach of automated repair of software regressions, called relifix, that considers the regression repair problem as a problem of reconciling problematic changes. Specifically, we derive a set of code transformations obtained from our manual inspection of 73 real software regressions; this set of code transformations uses syntactical information from changed statements. Regression repair is then accomplished via a search over the code transformation operators - which operator to apply, and where. Our evaluation compares the repairability of relifix with GenProg on 35 real regression errors. relifix repairs 23 bugs, while GenProg only fixes five bugs. We also measure the likelihood of both approaches in introducing new regressions given a reduced test suite. Our experimental results shows that our approach is less likely to introduce new regressions than GenProg.