关键词: 变异测试, 弱变异测试, 等价变异体, 变异分支

Abstract: Mutation testing evaluates the quality of given test cases by executing mutants. However, a certain percentage of equivalent mutants increase the cost of mutation testing, as well as influence?the accuracy of evaluating the given test cases. A method is presented based on weak mutation analysis to accurately detect the equivalent mutants. In the method, conditional expressions, which can reflect the necessity of killing mutants, are combined by the statements before and after mutation, and the mutant branches are constructed from the combined conditional expressions. All mutant branches are integrated into the original program. The equivalent mutants are identified according to the satisfiability?of mutant branches. The proposed method is applied to six programs, and the results suggest that the proposed method can effectively identify the equivalent mutants.

Key words: mutation testing, weak mutation testing, equivalent mutant, mutant branch