TY - GEN
T1 - Comparative language fuzz testing
T2 - 2012 ACM 4th Annual Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools, PLATEAU 2012
AU - Spinellis, Diomidis
AU - Karakoidas, Vassilios
AU - Louridas, Panos
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - We explore how programs written in ten popular programming languages are affected by small changes of their source code. This allows us to analyze the extend to which these languages allow the detection of simple errors at compile or at run time. Our study is based on a diverse corpus of programs written in several programming languages systematically perturbed using a mutation-based fuzz generator. The results we obtained prove that languages with weak type systems are significantly likelier than languages that enforce strong typing to let fuzzed programs compile and run, and, in the end, produce erroneous results. More importantly, our study also demonstrates the potential of comparative language fuzz testing for evaluating programming language designs.
AB - We explore how programs written in ten popular programming languages are affected by small changes of their source code. This allows us to analyze the extend to which these languages allow the detection of simple errors at compile or at run time. Our study is based on a diverse corpus of programs written in several programming languages systematically perturbed using a mutation-based fuzz generator. The results we obtained prove that languages with weak type systems are significantly likelier than languages that enforce strong typing to let fuzzed programs compile and run, and, in the end, produce erroneous results. More importantly, our study also demonstrates the potential of comparative language fuzz testing for evaluating programming language designs.
KW - Comparison
KW - Fuzzing
KW - Programming languages
KW - Rosetta stone
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84872102993&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2414721.2414727
DO - 10.1145/2414721.2414727
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84872102993
SN - 9781450316316
T3 - SPLASH 2012: PLATEAU 2012 - Proceedings of the 2012 ACM 4th Annual Workshop on Evaluation and Usability of Programming Languages and Tools
SP - 25
EP - 34
BT - SPLASH 2012
Y2 - 21 October 2012 through 21 October 2012
ER -