Effective and Efficient API Misuse Detection via Exception Propagation and Search-based Testing

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) typically come with (implicit) usage constraints. The violations of these constraints (API misuses) can lead to software crashes. Even though there are several tools that can detect API misuses, most of them suffer from a very high rate of false positives. We introduce Catcher, a novel API misuse detection approach that combines static exception propagation analysis with automatic search-based test case generation to effectively and efficiently pinpoint crash-prone API misuses in client applications. We validate Catcher against 21 Java applications, targeting misuses of the Java platform’s API. Our results indicate that Catcher is able to generate test cases that uncover 243 (unique) API misuses that result in crashes. Our empirical evaluation shows that Catcher can detect a large number of misuses (77 cases) that would remain undetected by the traditional coverage-based test case generator EvoSuite. Additionally, Catcher is on average eight times faster than EvoSuite in generating test cases for the identified misuses. Finally, we find that the majority of the exceptions triggered by Catcher are unexpected to developers i.e., not only unhandled in the source code but also not listed in the documentation of the client applications.
Thu 18 Jul Times are displayed in time zone: Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Urumqi change
16:00 - 17:30: APIs and Symbolic ExecutionTechnical Papers at Grand Ballroom Chair(s): Moonzoo KimKAIST | |||
16:00 - 16:22 Talk | Effective and Efficient API Misuse Detection via Exception Propagation and Search-based Testing Technical Papers Maria KechagiaUniversity College London, Xavier DevroeyDelft University of Technology, Annibale PanichellaDeflt University of Technology, Georgios GousiosTU Delft, Arie van DeursenDelft University of Technology DOI Pre-print Media Attached | ||
16:22 - 16:45 Talk | Automated API-Usage Update for Android Apps Technical Papers Mattia FazziniGeorgia Institute of Technology, Qi XinGeorgia Institute of Technology, Alessandro OrsoGeorgia Tech | ||
16:45 - 17:07 Talk | A Large-Scale Study of Application Incompatibilities in Android Technical Papers Haipeng CaiWashington State University Pullman, Ziyi Zhang, Li LiMonash University, Australia, Xiaoqin FuWashington State University Pre-print | ||
17:07 - 17:30 Talk | Deferred Concretization in Symbolic Execution via Fuzzing Technical Papers |