Detect and Localize Faults in Alias-Free Programs Using Specification Knowledge

Locating faults is one of the most time consuming tasks in today's fast paced economy. Testing and formal verification techniques like model-checking are usually used for detecting faults but do not attempt to locate the root-cause for the detected faulty behavior. This article makes use of an abstract dependences between program variables for detecting and locating faults in alias-free programs in cases where an abstract specification is available. The idea of using dependences for fault detection and localization is not new. But the relationship between the abstract model and the concrete evaluation of programs have not been considered so far. In particular we show that the dependence model is correct. Whenever the dependence model reveals a fault there is a test case, which also reveals a fault.