Investigating the use of DSLs for technology agnostic object oriented mutation testing

Abstract

Mutation testing is a test suite analysis technique based on fault injection which has received substantial research interest over the past decade. However, whilst many tools exist, they are often tailored to a particular programming language or technology, something which contradicts the general trend of multi-technology software projects. In this dissertation, I investigated the use of domain specific languages for specifying mutation operators for object oriented systems, regardless of the under- lying technology. The results of this study are a domain specific language allowing users to define mutation operators for object oriented systems at a technology agnostic level, and an API able to cater for multiple languages that can be used by mutation testing tools to integrate with the language. An implemented compiler has the ability to compile mutation operator definitions to the Java and C# API. The use of this API with existing mutation testing tools is also investigated. As a proof of concept, a mutation operator implemented in one of the investigated tools is redefined in the DSL, and verified by being compiled back to the same tool.