SHF: Small: Find and Fix Similar Software Bugs

SHF：小型：查找并修复类似的软件错误

• 批准号: 1018600
• 负责人: Tien Nguyen
• 金额: $ 48.33万
• 依托单位: Iowa State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-08-15 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1018600&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SHF; Small; Find; Fix; Similar

Finding and fixing bugs are crucial in the process of developing reliable and high-quality software. Software developers could base on their own experience with their programs, or effectively find bugs by consulting the similar bugs and fixes from others in the past for the same or different systems. However, the body of knowledge in software engineering is still very limited on the nature, the causes and effects, and the characteristics of such recurring bugs. The learning process from prior known bugs is still ad-hoc, manually, and un-systematically. In this project, a comprehensive approach is introduced to capture the knowledge of prior bugs and corresponding fixes, and to leverage such knowledge to build automated tools to detect potential recurring buggy code at other locations in the same or different systems. Such tools will help to detect bugs early in the development process, leading to higher-quality software and the improvement in productivity of software developers in the bug fixingpractice.In this project, an empirical study will be conducted to collect, analyze, and understand the nature and characteristics of recurring and similar bugs within one and across multiple systems. This project is expected to advance software engineering knowledge on the theoretical foundation, concepts, practical techniques, and automated tools to (1) capture the characteristics and measure the similarity of code units involved in prior known fixed bugs, (2) identify the locations of potential buggy units and derive the guidelines to fix them by matching them to the relevant peer code units of the known bugs, and (3) support the similar bug detection and fixing process. The teaching modules and validation efforts in this project will involve students and professionals, promoting teaching and training software quality assurance.

在开发可靠且高质量的软件过程中，查找并修复错误至关重要。软件开发人员可以根据自己的程序经验，或者通过参考过去其他人针对相同或不同系统的类似错误和修复来有效地发现错误。然而，软件工程的知识体系对于此类反复出现的错误的性质、原因和影响以及特征仍然非常有限。从先前已知的错误中学习的过程仍然是临时的、手动的和非系统的。在该项目中，引入了一种综合方法来捕获先前错误和相应修复的知识，并利用这些知识构建自动化工具来检测相同或不同系统中其他位置的潜在重复错误代码。这些工具将有助于在开发过程的早期检测到错误，从而带来更高质量的软件并提高软件开发人员在错误修复实践中的生产力。在这个项目中，将进行实证研究来收集、分析和理解一个系统内以及多个系统之间重复出现的类似错误的性质和特征。该项目预计将推进软件工程在理论基础、概念、实用技术和自动化工具方面的知识，以（1）捕获先前已知的已修复错误中涉及的代码单元的特征并测量其相似性，（2）识别潜在的错误单元，并通过将它们与已知错误的相关对等代码单元相匹配来导出修复它们的指南，并且（3）支持类似的错误检测和修复过程。该项目的教学模块和验证工作将涉及学生和专业人士，促进教学和培训软件质量保证。