Using symbolic execution for equivalent mutant detection

Abstract

Mutation Testing is a fault injection technique used to measure test adequacy score by generating defects (mutations) in a program and checking if its test suite is able to detect such a change. However, this technique suffers from the Equivalent Mutant Problem, given that certain mutants retain the same semantics as the original program. Automated equivalence checking is not feasible, thus developers have to manually detect and remove equivalent mutants from the Mutation Testing process which is very time consuming thus hindering the adoption of Mutation Testing.