Design of a Fuzzy model to detect equivalent mutants for weak and strong mutation testing

Abstract

Mutation testing is a software testing technique which works on the principle of applying simple changes to a program which is known as a mutant. A mutant helps to map the effects of real faults and generate test suite which helps to detect these faults. If the faults are detected using a given test input then the mutant is said to be “killed”. If the faults are not detected thereupon the mutant is “live”. Equivalent mutants are live mutants, which will not exhibit a different output from the original program's output, no matter what test input is given. It is important to find out if a mutant is equivalent. In this paper, we have proposed a Fuzzy model for weak and strong mutation testing to find out whether a mutant is equivalent or not.