International Business Machines Corporation

Frank Tip

Julian Timothy Dolby

Marco Pistoia

Shay Artzi

Manu Sridharan

Peter Francis Sweeney

Omer Tripp

Stephen Fink

Ganesan Ramalingam

John H Field

Bjorn De Sutter

Roee Hay

Omri Weisman

Adi Sharabani

David Francis Bacon

Ory Segal

Jong-Deok Choi

Yinnon Avraham Haviv

Mandana Vaziri

Johannes Christiaan Laffra

Mandana Vaziri-Farahani

Max Schaefer

Salvatore Angelo Guarnieri

Satish Chandra

Emina Torlak

Christian J Hammer

Gregor Snelting

Jens Palsberg

Simon H Jensen

Systems, methods are program products for simulating black box test results using information obtained from white box testing, including analyzing computer software (e.g., an application) to identify a potential vulnerability within the computer software application and a plurality of milestones associated with the potential vulnerability, where each of the milestones indicates a location within the computer software application, tracing a path from a first one of the milestones to an entry point into the computer software application, identifying an input to the entry point that would result in a control flow from the entry point and through each of the milestones, describing the potential vulnerability in a description indicating the entry point and the input, and presenting the description via a computer-controlled output medium.

Simulating black box test results using information from white box testing

A novel system, computer program product, and method are disclosed for feedback-directed automated test generation for programs, such as JavaScript, in which execution is monitored to collect information that directs the test generator towards inputs that yield increased coverage. Several instantiations of the framework are implemented, corresponding to variations on feedback-directed random testing, in a tool called Artemis.

Automated testing of applications with scripting code

Disclosed is a novel computer implemented system, on demand service, computer program product and a method that leverages combined concrete and symbolic execution and several fault-localization techniques to automatically detects failures and localizes faults in PHP Hypertext Preprocessor ('PHP') Web applications.

Fault localization using condition modeling and return value modeling

The present invention provides a system, computer program product and a computer implemented method for prioritizing code fragments based on the use of a software oracle and on a correlation between the executed code fragments and the output they produce. Also described is a computer-implemented method generates additional user inputs based on execution information associated with path constraints and based on information from the oracle. Advantageously, the embodiment is useful in a test generation tool that generated many similar inputs when a failure-inducing input is found, in order to enhance fault localization. Further, described is a computer-implemented flow for extending the existing idea of concolic testing to applications that interact with persistent state.

Fault detection and localization in dynamic software applications

Disclosed is a novel computer implemented system, on demand service, computer program product and a method that provides a set of lock usages that improves concurrency resulting in execution performance of the software application by reducing lock contention through refactoring. More specifically, disclosed is a method to refactor a software application. The method starts with accessing at least a portion of a software application that can execute in an operating environment where there are more two or more threads of execution. Next, a determination is made if there is at least one lock used in the software application to enforce limits on accessing a resource. In response to determining that there is a lock with a first type of construct with a given set of features, the software application is refactored with the lock to preserve behavior of the software application.

Refactoring programs for flexible locking

A novel system, computer program product, and method are disclosed for transforming a program to facilitate points-to analysis. The method begins with accessing at least a portion of program code, such as JavaScript. In one example, a method with at least one dynamic property correlation is identified for extraction. When a method m is identified for extraction with the dynamic property correlation, a body of the loop l in the method m is extracted. A new method mis created to include the body of the loop l with the variable i as a parameter. The loop l is substituted in the program code of the method m with the new method mto create a transformed program code.

Scalable property-sensitive points-to analysis for program code

Automated refactorings as implemented in modern IDEs for Java usually make no special provisions for concurrent code. Thus, refactored programs may exhibit unexpected new concurrent behaviors. We analyze the types of such behavioral changes caused by current refactoring engines and develop techniques to make them behavior-preserving, ranging from simple techniques to deal with concurrency-related language constructs to a framework that computes and tracks synchronization dependencies. By basing our development directly on the Java Memory Model we can state and prove precise correctness results about refactoring concurrent programs. We show that a broad range of refactorings are not influenced by concurrency at all, whereas other important refactorings can be made behavior-preserving for correctly synchronized programs by using our framework. Experience with a prototype implementation shows that our techniques are easy to implement and require only minimal changes to existing refactoring engines.

Correct refactoring of concurrent software

Fault detection and localization in dynamic software applications requiring user inputs and persistent states

The present invention provides a programming model based on a relational view of the heap which defines identity declaratively, obviating the need for equals( ) and hashcode( ) methods. Each element in the heap (called a tuple) belongs to a relation type and relates an immutable identity to mutable state. The model entails a stricter contract: identity never changes during an execution. Objects, values, and singletons arise as special cases of tuples.

Declarative object identity using relation types

The present invention provides a system, computer program product, and a computer implemented method for analyzing a set of two or more communicating applications. The method includes executing a first application, such as a client application, and executing a second application, such as a server application. The applications are communicating with each other. A correlation is recorded between the applications and an execution characteristic exhibited on execution. An oracle is used to determine an analysis of the first application that has been executed. The execution of the first application causes a change of state in the second application and/or a change control flow in the second application. Code fragment in the first application and/or the second application are prioritized based on an evaluation produced by the oracle, and based on the correlation between the code fragments that have been executed and the execution characteristic exhibited by the code fragments.

Detecting and localizing security vulnerabilities in client-server application

The present invention provides a system, computer program product, and a computer implemented method for analyzing a set of two or more communicating applications. The method begins with receiving a first second application that communicates with each other during execution. Next, an initial input for executing the first application and the second application is received. The initial input is added to a set of inputs. An iterative execution loop is performed at least once. The loop begins with selecting inputs out of the set of inputs for execution. Next, using the selected inputs, the first and/or the second application is executed while information regarding the execution and information communicated to the other application are recorded. A set of one or more new application inputs for either applications is generated based the second application recorded information and the first application information. These new inputs are added to the set of inputs.

Generating inputs for client-server programs for fault-detection and localization

A system and method for ensuring consistency of data and preventing data races, including steps of: receiving and examining a computer program written in an object-oriented language; receiving sequences of accesses that form logical operations on a set of memory locations used by the program; receiving definitions of atomic sets of data from the memory locations, wherein said atomic sets are sets of data that indicate an existence of a consistency property without requiring the consistency property itself; inferring which code blocks of the computer program must be synchronized in order to prevent one or more data races in the computer program, wherein synchronization is inferred by determining by analysis for each unit of work, what atomic sets are read and written by the unit of work; and providing a message indicating where synchronization is required.

Using atomic sets of memory locations

Disclosed is a novel computer implemented system, on demand service, computer program product and a method for fault-localization techniques that apply statistical analyses to execution data gathered from multiple tests. The present invention determines the fault-localization effectiveness of test suites generated according to several test-generation techniques based on combined concrete and symbolic (concolic) execution. These techniques are evaluated by applying the Ochiai fault-localization technique to generated test suites in order to localize 35 faults in four PHPWeb applications. The results show that the test-generation techniques under consideration produce test suites with similar high fault-localization effectiveness, when given a large time budget.

Fault localization using directed test generation

A method, an information processing system, and a computer readable medium, are used to detect atomic-set serializability violations in an execution of a program. A set of classes associated with a program to be analyzed is identified. The set of classes include a set of fields. At least one subset of fields in the set of fields in the identified classes is selected. A set of code fragments associated with an execution of the program is selected. Data accesses in the selected set of code fragments are observed. It is determined if the selected set of code fragments is serializable for each selected subset of fields.

Growing community of inventors

Ridgewood, NJ, United States of America

Frank Tip