Beautiful Testing

The Javalanche Framework

To conduct our mutation testing experiments, we have built a framework called Javalanche for the mutation testing of Java programs. Javalanche implements all the optimizations listed earlier and thus is able to test even medium-sized programs in a reasonable amount of time. Javalanche also supports ranking mutations according to their impact, thus allowing you to focus on those mutations with the highest impact.

The Javalanche framework is publicly available at our website. As a framework, Javalanche can easily be extended with additional operators or impact detectors. It is fully automated—we simply use it as a batch tool to run overnight—although a simple Eclipse integration is also available (Figure 18-2). If you are looking for an interactive tool, we also recommend taking a look at µJava, mentioned earlier, where lots of settings can be made interactively.

Figure 18-2. Javalanche running in the Eclipse environment