42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel: A Qualitative Study

Iago Abal; Claus Brabrand; Andrzej Wasowski

42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel: A Qualitative Study

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

Abstract

Feature-sensitive verification pursues effective analysis of the exponentially many variants of a program family. However, researchers lack examples of concrete bugs induced by variability, occurring in real large-scale systems. Such a collection of bugs is a requirement for goal-oriented research, serving to evaluate tool implementations of feature-sensitive analyses by testing them on real bugs. We present a qualitative study of 42 variability bugs collected from bug-fixing commits to the Linux kernel repository. We analyze each of the bugs, and record the results in a database. In addition, we provide self-contained simplified C99 versions of the bugs, facilitating understanding and tool evaluation. Our study provides insights into the nature and occurrence of variability bugs in a large C software system, and shows in what ways variability affects and increases the complexity of software bugs.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	ASE '14 Proceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering
Number of pages	12
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Publication date	2014
Pages	421-432
ISBN (Print)	978-1-4503-3013-8
Publication status	Published - 2014
Event	IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering - Aros Congress Centre, Västerås, Sweden Duration: 15 Sept 2014 → 19 Sept 2014 Conference number: 29 http://ase2014.org/

Conference

Conference	IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering
Number	29
Location	Aros Congress Centre
Country/Territory	Sweden
City	Västerås
Period	15/09/2014 → 19/09/2014
Internet address	http://ase2014.org/

Keywords

Bugs
Feature interactions
Linux
Software Variability

Cite this

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title = "42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel: A Qualitative Study",

abstract = "Feature-sensitive verification pursues effective analysis of the exponentially many variants of a program family. However, researchers lack examples of concrete bugs induced by variability, occurring in real large-scale systems. Such a collection of bugs is a requirement for goal-oriented research, serving to evaluate tool implementations of feature-sensitive analyses by testing them on real bugs. We present a qualitative study of 42 variability bugs collected from bug-fixing commits to the Linux kernel repository. We analyze each of the bugs, and record the results in a database. In addition, we provide self-contained simplified C99 versions of the bugs, facilitating understanding and tool evaluation. Our study provides insights into the nature and occurrence of variability bugs in a large C software system, and shows in what ways variability affects and increases the complexity of software bugs.",

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author = "Iago Abal and Claus Brabrand and Andrzej Wasowski",

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publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",

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note = "IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE 2014 ; Conference date: 15-09-2014 Through 19-09-2014",

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42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel: A Qualitative Study. / Abal, Iago; Brabrand, Claus ; Wasowski, Andrzej.
ASE '14 Proceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering . Association for Computing Machinery, 2014. p. 421-432.

Research output: Conference Article in Proceeding or Book/Report chapter › Article in proceedings › Research › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - 42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel

T2 - IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

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AU - Brabrand, Claus

AU - Wasowski, Andrzej

N1 - Conference code: 29

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Feature-sensitive verification pursues effective analysis of the exponentially many variants of a program family. However, researchers lack examples of concrete bugs induced by variability, occurring in real large-scale systems. Such a collection of bugs is a requirement for goal-oriented research, serving to evaluate tool implementations of feature-sensitive analyses by testing them on real bugs. We present a qualitative study of 42 variability bugs collected from bug-fixing commits to the Linux kernel repository. We analyze each of the bugs, and record the results in a database. In addition, we provide self-contained simplified C99 versions of the bugs, facilitating understanding and tool evaluation. Our study provides insights into the nature and occurrence of variability bugs in a large C software system, and shows in what ways variability affects and increases the complexity of software bugs.

AB - Feature-sensitive verification pursues effective analysis of the exponentially many variants of a program family. However, researchers lack examples of concrete bugs induced by variability, occurring in real large-scale systems. Such a collection of bugs is a requirement for goal-oriented research, serving to evaluate tool implementations of feature-sensitive analyses by testing them on real bugs. We present a qualitative study of 42 variability bugs collected from bug-fixing commits to the Linux kernel repository. We analyze each of the bugs, and record the results in a database. In addition, we provide self-contained simplified C99 versions of the bugs, facilitating understanding and tool evaluation. Our study provides insights into the nature and occurrence of variability bugs in a large C software system, and shows in what ways variability affects and increases the complexity of software bugs.

KW - Bugs

KW - Feature interactions

KW - Linux

KW - Software Variability

KW - Bugs

KW - Feature interactions

KW - Linux

KW - Software Variability

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 978-1-4503-3013-8

SP - 421

EP - 432

BT - ASE '14 Proceedings of the 29th ACM/IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

Y2 - 15 September 2014 through 19 September 2014

ER -

42 Variability Bugs in the Linux Kernel: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Conference

Keywords

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