Descartes: A PITest Engine to Detect Pseudo-Tested Methods - Tool Demonstration
This is an incremental improvement for developers in software testing, specifically targeting Java projects to enhance mutation testing efficiency.
The paper introduces Descartes, a tool that detects pseudo-tested methods in Java projects using extreme mutation operators, and demonstrates that it creates fewer mutants and runs faster than the default PIT engine Gregor in real open-source projects.
Descartes is a tool that implements extreme mutation operators and aims at finding pseudo-tested methods in Java projects. It leverages the efficient transformation and runtime features of PIT. The demonstration compares Descartes with Gregor, the default mutation engine provided by PIT, in a set of real open source projects. It considers the execution time, number of mutants created and the relationship between the mutation scores produced by both engines. It provides some insights on the main features exposed by Descartes.