Doc2Oracle: Investigating the Impact of Javadoc Comments on Test Oracle Generation

Code documentation is a critical aspect of software development, serving as a bridge between human understanding and machine-readable code. Beyond assisting developers in understanding and maintaining code, documentation also plays a critical role in automating various software engineering tasks, su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-12
Main Authors: Soneya Binta Hossain, Taylor, Raygan, Dwyer, Matthew
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bridge maintenance
Documentation
Parameter identification
Software development
Software testing
Source code
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Code documentation is a critical aspect of software development, serving as a bridge between human understanding and machine-readable code. Beyond assisting developers in understanding and maintaining code, documentation also plays a critical role in automating various software engineering tasks, such as test oracle generation (TOG). In Java, Javadoc comments provide structured, natural language documentation embedded directly in the source code, typically detailing functionality, usage, parameters, return values, and exceptions. While prior research has utilized Javadoc comments in test oracle generation (TOG), there has not been a thorough investigation into their impact when combined with other contextual information, nor into identifying the most relevant components for generating correct and strong test oracles, or understanding their role in detecting real bugs. In this study, we dive deep into investigating the impact of Javadoc comments on TOG.
ISSN:2331-8422