Upgrade to Pro
— share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …
Speaker Deck
Features
Speaker Deck
PRO
Sign in
Sign up for free
Search
Search
Kill the mutants, test your tests
Search
Sponsored
·
Your Podcast. Everywhere. Effortlessly.
Share. Educate. Inspire. Entertain. You do you. We'll handle the rest.
→
Joy of Coding
May 29, 2015
Programming
0
100
Kill the mutants, test your tests
Joy of Coding
May 29, 2015
Tweet
Share
More Decks by Joy of Coding
See All by Joy of Coding
Cool Code - Kevlin Henney
joyofcoding
0
320
Chris Granger - PROGRAMMING AS DISTRIBUTED COGNITION: DEFINING A SUPER POWER
joyofcoding
0
230
Cristina Lopes - Exercises in Programming Style
joyofcoding
0
500
Laurent Bossavit - The Joy of Debugging Ourselves
joyofcoding
0
250
Let Me Graph That For You: An Introduction to Neo4j - Ian Robinson
joyofcoding
1
170
Who’s afraid of Object Algebras? - Tijs van der Storm
joyofcoding
0
890
The Scientific Programmer - Eric Bouwers
joyofcoding
0
220
Building a web app in an hour - Trisha Gee
joyofcoding
0
270
Accelerating Agile - Dan North
joyofcoding
0
200
Other Decks in Programming
See All in Programming
組織で育むオブザーバビリティ
ryota_hnk
0
140
それ、本当に安全? ファイルアップロードで見落としがちなセキュリティリスクと対策
penpeen
7
2.3k
CSC307 Lecture 02
javiergs
PRO
1
770
AI Agent Tool のためのバックエンドアーキテクチャを考える #encraft
izumin5210
6
1.7k
DevFest Android in Korea 2025 - 개발자 커뮤니티를 통해 얻는 가치
wisemuji
0
190
カスタマーサクセス業務を変革したヘルススコアの実現と学び
_hummer0724
0
120
AIによるイベントストーミング図からのコード生成 / AI-powered code generation from Event Storming diagrams
nrslib
2
1.6k
AIエージェント、”どう作るか”で差は出るか? / AI Agents: Does the "How" Make a Difference?
rkaga
4
1.9k
コントリビューターによるDenoのすゝめ / Deno Recommendations by a Contributor
petamoriken
0
190
ZJIT: The Ruby 4 JIT Compiler / Ruby Release 30th Anniversary Party
k0kubun
1
380
クラウドに依存しないS3を使った開発術
simesaba80
0
230
KIKI_MBSD Cybersecurity Challenges 2025
ikema
0
1.2k
Featured
See All Featured
Testing 201, or: Great Expectations
jmmastey
46
7.9k
The Curse of the Amulet
leimatthew05
1
7.6k
Understanding Cognitive Biases in Performance Measurement
bluesmoon
32
2.8k
A designer walks into a library…
pauljervisheath
210
24k
[RailsConf 2023] Rails as a piece of cake
palkan
59
6.2k
Technical Leadership for Architectural Decision Making
baasie
1
220
CoffeeScript is Beautiful & I Never Want to Write Plain JavaScript Again
sstephenson
162
16k
Building a A Zero-Code AI SEO Workflow
portentint
PRO
0
260
Building a Scalable Design System with Sketch
lauravandoore
463
34k
Believing is Seeing
oripsolob
1
34
Fashionably flexible responsive web design (full day workshop)
malarkey
408
66k
Speed Design
sergeychernyshev
33
1.5k
Transcript
KILL THE MUTANTS a better way to test your tests
ABOUT ME • Roy van Rijn • Mutants: • Nora
• Lucas • Works for
SHOW OF HANDS let's do a
WHO DOES • Unit testing • Test-driven development (TDD) •
Continuous integration • Measure code coverage • Mutation testing
UNIT TESTING • Prove your code works • Instant regression
tests • Improve code design • Has become a mainstream practise over the last 10 years
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION • Automate testing • Maintain a single source
repository • Collect statistics
CODE COVERAGE • Measure the lines (or branches) that are
executed during testing
CODE COVERAGE • How did they test your car?
CODE COVERAGE • Who has seen (or written?) tests •
without verifications or assertions? • just to fake and boost coverage? • 100% branch coverage proves nothing
QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES? Who watches the watchmen?
MUTATION TESTING • Proposed by Richard J. Lipton in 1971
(winner of 2014 Knuth Prize) • A better way to measure the quality of your tests • Surge of interest in the 1980s • Time to revive this interest!
TERMINOLOGY: MUTATION • A mutation is a (small) change in
your codebase, for example:
TERMINOLOGY: MUTANT • A mutant is a mutated version of
your class
MUTATION TESTING • Generate (a lot of) mutants of your
codebase • Run (some of) your unit tests • Check the outcome!
OUTCOME #1: KILLED • A mutant is killed if a
test fails (detecting the mutated code) • This proves the mutated code is properly tested
OUTCOME #2: LIVED • A mutant didn’t trigger a failing
test…
OUTCOME #3: TIMED OUT • The mutant caused the program
loop, get stuck
OTHER OUTCOMES • NON-VIABLE • JVM could not load the
mutant bytecode • MEMORY ERROR • JVM ran out of memory during test • RUN ERROR • An error but none of the above.
FAULT INJECTION? • With fault injection you test code •
Inject faults/mutations and see how the system reacts • With mutation testing you test your tests • Inject faults/mutations and see how the tests react
TOOLING • µJava: http://cs.gmu.edu/~offutt/mujava/ (inactive) • Jester: http://jester.sourceforge.net/ (inactive) •
Jumble: http://jumble.sourceforge.net/ (inactive) • javaLanche: http://www.st.cs.uni-saarland.de/mutation/ (inactive) • PIT: http://pitest.org/
USING PIT • PIT uses configurable ‘mutators' • ASM (bytecode
manipulation) is used to mutate your code • No mutated code is stored, it can't interfere with your code • Generates reports with test results
MUTATORS: CONDITION BOUNDARY > into >= < into <= >=
into > <= into <
MUTATORS: NEGATE CONDITIONALS == into != != into == <=
into > >= into < < into >= > into <=
MUTATORS: REMOVE CONDITIONALS into if(true) { //something } if(a ==
b) { //something }
MUTATORS: MATH + into - - into + * into
/ / into * % into * & into | << into >> >> into << >>> into <<< a++ into a-- a-- into a++
MUTATORS: MANY MORE • Replacing return values (return a; becomes
return 0;) • Removal of void invocations (doSomething(); is removed) • Some enabled by default, others are optional/configurable
MUTATION TESTING IS SLOW? • Speed was unacceptable in the
80's • Mutation testing is still CPU intensive • But PIT has a lot of methods to speed it up!
WHICH TESTS TO RUN? • PIT uses code coverage to
decide which tests to run: • A mutation is on a line covered by 3 tests? Only run those.
SIMPLE EXAMPLE • 100 classes • 10 unit tests per
class • 2 ms per unit test • Total time (all tests): 100 x 10 x 2ms = 2s
SIMPLE EXAMPLE • Total time (all tests): 100 x 10
x 2ms = 2s • 8 mutants per class, 100 classes x 8 = 800 mutants • Brute force: 800 x 2s = 26m40s • Smart testing: 800 x 10 x 2ms = 16s
LONGER EXAMPLE • Total time (all tests): 1000 x 10
x 2ms = 20s • 8 mutants per class, 1000 classes x 8 = 8000 mutants • Brute force: 8000 x 20s = 1d20h26m40s…!!! • Smart testing: 8000 x 10 x 2ms = 2m40s
PERFORMANCE TIPS • Write fast tests • Good separation or
concerns • Use small classes, keep amount of unit tests per class low
INCREMENTAL ANALYSIS • Experimental feature • Incremental analysis keeps track
of: • Changes in the codebase • Previous results
HOW ABOUT MOCKING? • PIT has support for: • Mockito,
EasyMock, JMock, PowerMock and JMockit
HOW TO USE PIT? • Standalone Java process • Build:
Ant task, Maven plugin • CI: Sonarqube plugin, Gradle plugin • IDE: Eclipse plugin (Pitclipse), IntelliJ Plugin
STANDALONE JAVA java -cp <your classpath including pit jar and
dependencies> org.pitest.mutationtest.commandline.MutationCoverageReport --reportDir /somePath/ --targetClasses com.your.package.tobemutated* --targetTests com.your.package.* --sourceDirs /sourcePath/
MAVEN PLUGIN Run as: mvn clean package org.pitest:pitest-maven:mutationCoverage <plugin> <groupId>org.pitest</groupId>
<artifactId>pitest-maven</artifactId> <version>1.0.0</version> <configuration> <targetClasses> <param>com.your.package.tobemutated*</param> </targetClasses> <jvmArgs>…</jvmArgs> </configuration> </plugin>
EXAMPLE Let’s kill some mutants… or be killed.
USE CASE The price of an item is 17 euro
If you buy 20 or more, all items cost 15 euro If you have a coupon, all items cost 15 euro
CODE public int getPrice(int amountOfThings, boolean coupon) { if (amountOfThings
>= 20 || coupon) { return amountOfThings * 15; } return amountOfThings * 17; }
TEST #1 @Test public void testNormalPricing() { //Not enough for
discount: int amount = 1; Assert.assertEquals(17, businessLogic.getPrice(amount, false)); }
BRANCH COVERAGE public int getPrice(int amountOfThings, boolean coupon) { if
(amountOfThings >= 20 || coupon) { return amountOfThings * 15; } return amountOfThings * 17; }
TEST #2 @Test public void testDiscountPricingByAmount() { //Enough for discount:
int amount = 100; Assert.assertEquals(1500, businessLogic.getPrice(amount, false)); }
BRANCH COVERAGE public int getPrice(int amountOfThings, boolean coupon) { if
(amountOfThings >= 20 || coupon) { return amountOfThings * 15; } return amountOfThings * 17; }
TEST #3 @Test public void testDiscountWithCoupon() { //Not enough for
discount, but coupon: int amount = 1; Assert.assertEquals(15, businessLogic.getPrice(amount, true)); }
BRANCH COVERAGE public int getPrice(int amountOfThings, boolean coupon) { if
(amountOfThings >= 20 || coupon) { return amountOfThings * 15; } return amountOfThings * 17; }
PIT RESULT
PIT RESULT > org.pitest.mutationtest…ConditionalsBoundaryMutator >> Generated 1 Killed 0 (0%)
> KILLED 0 SURVIVED 1 TIMED_OUT 0 NON_VIABLE 0 > MEMORY_ERROR 0 NOT_STARTED 0 STARTED 0 RUN_ERROR 0 > NO_COVERAGE 0 PIT tells us: Changing >= into > doesn’t trigger a failing test
TEST #4 @Test public void testDiscountAmountCornerCase() { //Just enough for
discount, mutation into > should fail this test int amount = 20; Assert.assertEquals(300, businessLogic.getPrice(amount, true)); }
BRANCH COVERAGE public int getPrice(int amountOfThings, boolean coupon) { if
(amountOfThings >= 20 || coupon) { return amountOfThings * 15; } return amountOfThings * 17; }
PIT RESULT
PIT RESULT > org.pitest.mutationtest…ConditionalsBoundaryMutator >> Generated 1 Killed 0 (0%)
> KILLED 0 SURVIVED 1 TIMED_OUT 0 NON_VIABLE 0 > MEMORY_ERROR 0 NOT_STARTED 0 STARTED 0 RUN_ERROR 0 > NO_COVERAGE 0 STILL WRONG!?
DID YOU SPOT THE BUG? @Test public void testDiscountAmountCornerCase() {
//Just enough for discount, mutation into > should fail this test int amount = 20; Assert.assertEquals(300, businessLogic.getPrice(amount, true)); }
SUMMARY • Mutation testing automatically tests your tests • Mutation
testing can find bugs in your tests • Code coverage is wrong, gives a false sense of security • Mutation testing with PIT is easy to implement
QUESTIONS?