Implement All XPath Patterns Described in the Referenced Journal Paper

[gkapfham]

The following paper:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347335615_How_to_kill_them_all_An_exploratory_study_on_the_impact_of_code_observability_on_mutation_testing

describes a number of "mutation score anti-patterns" that limit the achievement
of a high mutation score for a test suite.

This project should come with XPath expressions that can scan a Python project
for all of the anti-patterns mentioned in this paper. The project should also:

• Support the execution of one or more mutation testing tools for Python,
  thereby supporting the study of the correlation between anti-patterns and
  mutation score
• Support the execution of test coverage monitoring and the collection of
  per-test coverage information with pytest-cov and coverage.py to support
  the study of the correlation between anti-patterns and coverage score
• Ensure that all of these data sources are completely integrated and available
  for statistical analysis and/or machine learning prediction

[MilesF25]

So far I think I have found a few of the xpath patterns in the journal, but I have some questions on which xpath pattern we want to use.
this is an xpath for a double nested for loop in a function. : //FunctionDef//For[.//For]
this is just for a double nested for loop: //For[.//For]
and this is for a for loop that is nested directly underneath a for loop: //For/For
which one's should we use?

[MilesF25]

Things TODO

-Find examples, to test our xpaths expressions on.
-Have Kapfhammer make a public repo that has projects
-Add our programs to repos for testing
-Add comment to functions to let user know what pattern should match
-Catch everyone one up on our progress
-We Need a macOS user to test the xpaths
-try to add xpaths for the things in https://github.com/simonw/symbex

[MilesF25]

I have finished finding most of the patterns from the pdf, but they need testing. Chatgpt sometimes gives me two different answers.

[MilesF25]

More descriptive TODO
-We need to test our XPATHS on small python samples.(This could be a small function that iterates through a word)

• @gkapfham will make a public repo with all the python samples we can test the XPATHS on, we can also add our own samples
• We will need to leave comments on the python samples explaining what XPATH pattern the sample is
  -We also need to make XPATHS patterns for the symbols shown in the symbex repo. https://github.com/simonw/symbex
  -We Also need a MacOS user to test our XPATHS. @VitalJoseph

[VitalJoseph]

@MilesF25 hey miles can you send the command to access the xml document of subject data?

[MilesF25]

@VitalJoseph it's pyastdump filename

[VitalJoseph]

@MilesF25 thanks

[MilesF25]

We don't need to add count to the XPATH patterns, Chasten already does the counting. We also don't need the function name for now. So instead of doing count(//FunctionDef[@name='my_function']//If/descendant::If). You can do something like this instead //FunctionDef//If/descendant::If). (This is not a proper XPATH)

[MilesF25]

I was able to get one XPATH pattern to work. '//FunctionDef//If/following-sibling::If'. This looks for nested if statements.

[boulais01]

@VitalJoseph @Finley8 @MilesF25 Was this completed in a merged PR?

[simojo]

@VitalJoseph @MilesF25 just confirmed that work is actively happening on this issue, but in a Google doc rather than in a branch. The plan is to get this documented on our GitHub wiki by 2023-11-05. If this is not done in time, we will set this issue to the side.

[MilesF25]

Google doc to hopefully working xpaths. https://docs.google.com/document/d/12OVwJkJBG0KB90UbGjfpXwtau2iXV_cV_7-KlGkPfKo/edit

[VitalJoseph]

@MilesF25 here is the xpath pattern for the (assertion_density) check that i have tried. Im having trouble with this one if ypu want to take a look at it.

"count(//FunctionDef[@type='str']/body/Asserts) idiv count(//FunctionDef[@type='str']/body/*)"

[VitalJoseph]

Also having trouble with the (direct_test_no) check. Here is the pattern I used.

//FunctionDef[@type='str' and starts-with(@name, 'test_')]/body//Call/Name[@id='test_function']

[Finley8]

@VitalJoseph The following are some solutions that do not immediately break the program when run.

- name: "assertion-density" code: "ASD" id: "ASD001" pattern: "/testSuite/directTest[assertions div linesOfCode > 0.2]" count: min: null max: null

- name: "direct-test-no" code: "DTN" id: "DTN001" pattern: "//FunctionDef[@type='str' and starts-with(@name, 'test_')]/body//Call/Name[@id='test_function']" count: min: null max: null

[Finley8]

[simojo]

@VitalJoseph does PR #125 close this issue? @gkapfham was asking if it implements all of the checks.

[VitalJoseph]

@simojo yes