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Using entropy measures for comparison of software traces
Open accessAbstract
The analysis of execution paths (also known as software traces) collected from a given software product can help in a number of areas including software testing, software maintenance and program comprehension. The lack of a scalable matching algorithm operating on detailed execution paths motivates the search for an alternative solution. This paper proposes the use of word entropies for the classification of software traces. Using a well-studied defective software as an example, we investigate the application of both Shannon and extended entropies (Landsberg-Vedral, Renyi and Tsallis) to the classification of traces related to various software defects. Our study shows that using entropy measures for comparisons gives an efficient and scalable method for comparing traces. The three extended entropies, with parameters chosen to emphasize rare events, all perform similarly and are superior to the Shannon entropy.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Miranskyy, A. V., Davison, M., Reesor, R. M., & Murtaza, S. S.
- Affiliations
- Western University (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Miranskyy, A.V.
- Venue
- Information Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-10
- Volume
- 203
- Pages
- 59-72
- ISSN
- 0020-0255 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1970716157
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 40
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 6.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Licence
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- Locations
- Information Sciences (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Theoretical Computer Science › Algorithms and Data Compression
- Keywords
- execution paths, entropy measures, trace classification, software defects, Shannon entropy, Rényi entropy, Tsallis entropy, rare events, software testing
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