Automatic program repair with evolutionary computation

Abstract

There are many methods for detecting and mitigating software errors but few generic methods for automatically repairing errors once they are discovered. This paper highlights recent work combining program analysis methods with evolutionary computation to automatically repair bugs in off-the-shelf legacy C programs. The method takes as input the buggy C source code, a failed test case that demonstrates the bug, and a small number of other test cases that encode the required functionality of the program. The repair procedure does not rely on formal specifications, making it applicable to a wide range of extant software for which formal specifications rarely exist.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
May 01, 2010
Source ID
10.1145/1735223.1735249

Entities

People

  • Claire Le Goues
  • Stephanie Forrest
  • ThanhVu Nguyen
  • Westley Weimer

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • Division of Computer and Network Systems
  • Division of Computing and Communication Foundations
  • National Science Foundation
  • University of New Mexico
  • University of Virginia

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Database Systems and Applications
  • Software Engineering
  • Systems Analysis and Design