A tool for domain-independent model mutation

作者：Gomez Abajo Pablo^*; Guerra Esther; de Lara Juan; Merayo Mercedes G

来源：Science of Computer Programming, 2018, 163: 85-92.

DOI：10.1016/j.scico.2018.01.008

• Model-driven engineering
• Domain-specific languages
• Model mutation
• Mutation footprint
• Model synthesis

Mutation is a systematic technique to create variants of a seed artefact by means of mutation operators. It has many applications in computer science, like software testing, automatic exercise generation and design space exploration. Typically, mutation frameworks are developed ad-hoc by implementing mutation operators and their application strategies from scratch, using general-purpose programming languages. However, this is costly and error-prone.
To improve this situation, we propose WODEL: a domain-specific language and tool for model-based mutation that is independent of the domain meta-model. WoDELenables the rapid development and application of model mutations. It provides built-in advanced functionalities like automatic generation of seed models, and static and dynamic metrics of operator coverage and applicability. It offers extension points, e.g., to post-process mutants and describe domain-specific equivalence criteria. As an example, we illustrate the usage of WODEL for the mutation of security policies, and present an empirical evaluation of its expressiveness.

• 出版日期2018-10-1