Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair

Test-based automated program repair (TB-APR) techniques automatically fix buggy programs by relying on a failing test suite. This test suite serves a dual purpose: pinpointing bugs and evaluating the validity of potential patches. However, the effectiveness of TB-APR techniques in generating correct...

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Autores principales: Godio, Ariel, Gutiérrez Brida, Simón, Regis, Germán, Bagheri, Hamid, Nguyen, ThanhVu, Aguirre
Formato: Artículo de publicación periódica
Lenguaje:Español
Publicado: IEEE 2026
Materias:
MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING, OVERFITTING, COMPUTER BUGS, TEST SUITE, AUTOMATED PROGRAM REPAIR
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14769/5737
Aporte de:
Repositorio Institucional Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) de Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA)
id I32-R138-20.500.14769-5737
record_format dspace
spelling I32-R138-20.500.14769-57372026-04-24T13:44:34Z Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair Godio, Ariel Gutiérrez Brida, Simón Regis, Germán Bagheri, Hamid Nguyen, ThanhVu Aguirre MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING, OVERFITTING, COMPUTER BUGS, TEST SUITE, AUTOMATED PROGRAM REPAIR Test-based automated program repair (TB-APR) techniques automatically fix buggy programs by relying on a failing test suite. This test suite serves a dual purpose: pinpointing bugs and evaluating the validity of potential patches. However, the effectiveness of TB-APR techniques in generating correct patches is highly dependent on the test suite utilized. The primary shortcoming of TB-APR techniques arises from the intrinsic incompleteness of test suites, resulting in a significant drawback: overfitting, i.e., the generation of ‘overfitted patches’, patches that pass the given test suites but fail to repair the subject program correctly regarding its more general intended behavior. To address this challenge, we present a novel technique designed to enhance the effectiveness of TB-APR methods by automatically generating test suites tailored for program repair. Unlike prior TB-APR techniques, it is rooted in the recognition that edge cases that invalidate overfitted patches play a pivotal role in guiding the repair process away from incorrect solutions. This technique leverages formal specifications and bounded verification to evaluate candidate patches and transforms the counterexamples (CEs) obtained from verifying candidate patches into tests for program repair. The efficacy of iteratively using such CEs as tests for TB-APR is substantiated by Iter-T our implementation of this technique for Java programs and JML specifications, evaluated on a benchmark of 717 buggy Java programs drawn from the APR literature. By progressively constructing test suites exclusively from CEs of overfitted candidate patches, Iter-T increases the odds of fixing a bug by about 58% compared to the originally provided test suites. Moreover, in cases where a TB-APR tool repairs a program using its original suite, employing CEs alone as test suites reduces the median time required to generate a correct patch by 42%. Remarkably, the generated CEs-based test suites are very small, accomplishing ... 2026-04-24T13:44:33Z 2026-04-24T13:44:33Z 2026-03-10 Artículo de publicación periódica A. Godio et al., "Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair," in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, doi: 10.1109/TSE.2026.3671416 1939-3520 https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14769/5737 10.1109/TSE.2026.3671416 es IEEE
institution Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA)
institution_str I-32
repository_str R-138
collection Repositorio Institucional Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA)
language Español
topic MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING, OVERFITTING, COMPUTER BUGS, TEST SUITE, AUTOMATED PROGRAM REPAIR
spellingShingle MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING, OVERFITTING, COMPUTER BUGS, TEST SUITE, AUTOMATED PROGRAM REPAIR
Godio, Ariel
Gutiérrez Brida, Simón
Regis, Germán
Bagheri, Hamid
Nguyen, ThanhVu
Aguirre
Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
topic_facet MAINTENANCE ENGINEERING, OVERFITTING, COMPUTER BUGS, TEST SUITE, AUTOMATED PROGRAM REPAIR
description Test-based automated program repair (TB-APR) techniques automatically fix buggy programs by relying on a failing test suite. This test suite serves a dual purpose: pinpointing bugs and evaluating the validity of potential patches. However, the effectiveness of TB-APR techniques in generating correct patches is highly dependent on the test suite utilized. The primary shortcoming of TB-APR techniques arises from the intrinsic incompleteness of test suites, resulting in a significant drawback: overfitting, i.e., the generation of ‘overfitted patches’, patches that pass the given test suites but fail to repair the subject program correctly regarding its more general intended behavior. To address this challenge, we present a novel technique designed to enhance the effectiveness of TB-APR methods by automatically generating test suites tailored for program repair. Unlike prior TB-APR techniques, it is rooted in the recognition that edge cases that invalidate overfitted patches play a pivotal role in guiding the repair process away from incorrect solutions. This technique leverages formal specifications and bounded verification to evaluate candidate patches and transforms the counterexamples (CEs) obtained from verifying candidate patches into tests for program repair. The efficacy of iteratively using such CEs as tests for TB-APR is substantiated by Iter-T our implementation of this technique for Java programs and JML specifications, evaluated on a benchmark of 717 buggy Java programs drawn from the APR literature. By progressively constructing test suites exclusively from CEs of overfitted candidate patches, Iter-T increases the odds of fixing a bug by about 58% compared to the originally provided test suites. Moreover, in cases where a TB-APR tool repairs a program using its original suite, employing CEs alone as test suites reduces the median time required to generate a correct patch by 42%. Remarkably, the generated CEs-based test suites are very small, accomplishing ...
format Artículo de publicación periódica
author Godio, Ariel
Gutiérrez Brida, Simón
Regis, Germán
Bagheri, Hamid
Nguyen, ThanhVu
Aguirre
author_facet Godio, Ariel
Gutiérrez Brida, Simón
Regis, Germán
Bagheri, Hamid
Nguyen, ThanhVu
Aguirre
author_sort Godio, Ariel
title Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
title_short Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
title_full Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
title_fullStr Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
title_full_unstemmed Iter-T: ITERative Test suite generation for automated program repair
title_sort iter-t: iterative test suite generation for automated program repair
publisher IEEE
publishDate 2026
url https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14769/5737
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