Apply Mutation Testing

Dextool mutate requires a compile_commands.json for its analyzer. Such a file contains how each file that the project consist of is compiled. These flags are extracted by dextool from compile_commands.json in order to analyze the source code for mutants. Some build systems can produce such a json file natively (cmake) while others can be inspected with BEAR.

You can either follow the instruction below for an example or use game_tutorial.

GoogleTest

Google Test project is used as an example.

Obtain the project you want to analyze:

git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git
cd googletest

Generate a JSON compilation database for the project:

mkdir build
pushd build
cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=ON -Dgtest_build_tests=ON -Dgmock_build_tests=ON ..
make
popd

Create a configuration file:

dextool mutate admin --init

The file should be pretty self explaining.

Open the config file and change the following fields:

[workarea]
include = ["googlemock/include/*", "googlemock/src/*", "googletest/include/*", "googletest/src/*"]

[compiler]
extra_flags = [ "-D_POSIX_PATH_MAX=1024" ]

[compile_commands]
search_paths = ["./build/compile_commands.json"]

[mutant_test]
test_cmd = "./test.sh"
#test_cmd_dir = ["./build/test"]
build_cmd = "./build.sh"
analyze_using_builtin = ["gtest"]

Generate a database of containing the mutants:

dextool mutate analyze

Create a file build.sh that will build the subject under test when invoked:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
cd build
make -j$(nproc)

Create a file test.sh that will run the entire test suite when invoked:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
cd build
ctest --output-on-failure

Make the files executable so they can be used by dextool:

chmod 755 build.sh test.sh

Run the mutation testing on the LCR mutants:

dextool mutate test

For more examples see here.