A Practical System for Mutation Testing: Help for the Common Programmer

{ Mutation testing is a technique for unit testing software that, although powerful, is computa-tionally expensive. Recent engineering advances have given us techniques and algorithms for signiicantly reducing the cost of mutation testing. These techniques include a new algorithmic execution technique called schema-based mutation, an approximation technique called weak mutation, a reduction technique called selective mutation, and algorithms for automatic test data generation. This paper outlines a design for a system that will approximate mutation, but in a way that will be accessible to everyday programmers. We envision a system to which a programmer can submit a program unit, and get back a set of input/output pairs that are guaranteed to form an eeective test of the unit by being close to mutation adequate.