Title

@Tcomment: Testing Javadoc Comments To Detect Comment-Code Inconsistencies

Keywords

comment analysis; random testing; test generation

Abstract

Code comments are important artifacts in software. Javadoc comments are widely used in Java for API specifications. API developers write Javadoc comments, and API users read these comments to understand the API, e.g., reading a Javadoc comment for a method instead of reading the method body. An inconsistency between the Javadoc comment and body for a method indicates either a fault in the body or, effectively, a fault in the comment that can mislead the method callers to introduce faults in their code. We present a novel approach, called @TCOMMENT, for testing Javadoc comments, specifically method properties about null values and related exceptions. Our approach consists of two components. The first component takes as input source files for a Java project and automatically analyzes the English text in Javadoc comments to infer a set of likely properties for a method in the files. The second component generates random tests for these methods, checks the inferred properties, and reports inconsistencies. We evaluated @TCOMMENT on seven open-source projects and found 29 inconsistencies between Javadoc comments and method bodies. We reported 16 of these inconsistencies, and 5 have already been confirmed and fixed by the developers. © 2012 IEEE.

Publication Date

6-21-2012

Publication Title

Proceedings - IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, ICST 2012

Number of Pages

260-269

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST.2012.106

Socpus ID

84862315107 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84862315107

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS