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Article
Scenario-based and value-based specification mining: better together
ASE '10: Proccedings of the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, 20-24 September, Antwerp, Belgium
  • David LO, Singapore Management University
  • Shahar MAOZ, Aachen University
Publication Type
Conference Proceeding Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
9-2010
Abstract

Specification mining takes execution traces as input and extracts likely program invariants, which can be used for comprehension, verification, and evolution related tasks. In this work we integrate scenario-based specification mining, which uses data-mining algorithms to suggest ordering constraints in the form of live sequence charts, an inter-object, visual, modal, scenario-based specification language, with mining of value-based invariants, which detects likely invariants holding at specific program points. The key to the integration is a technique we call scenario-based slicing, running on top of the mining algorithms to distinguish the scenario-specific invariants from the general ones. The resulting suggested specifications are rich, consisting of modal scenarios annotated with scenario-specific value-based invariants, referring to event parameters and participating object properties. An evaluation of our work over a number of case studies shows promising results in extracting expressive specifications from real programs, which could not be extracted previously. The more expressive the mined specifications, the higher their potential to support program comprehension and testing.

Keywords
  • Specification Mining,
  • Dynamic Analysis,
  • Live Sequence Charts,
  • Value-Based Invariants
ISBN
9781450301169
Identifier
10.1145/1858996.1859081
Publisher
ACM
City or Country
New York
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1145/1858996.1859081
Citation Information
David LO and Shahar MAOZ. "Scenario-based and value-based specification mining: better together" ASE '10: Proccedings of the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, 20-24 September, Antwerp, Belgium (2010) p. 387 - 396
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/david_lo/9/