Using entropy measures for comparison of software traces

  • Authors:

  • A. V. Miranskyy;M. Davison;R. M. Reesor;S. S. Murtaza

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7 and IBM Toronto Software Lab, Markham, Ontario, Canada L6G 1C7;Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7 and Department of Statistical & Actuarial Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario ...;Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7 and Department of Statistical & Actuarial Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario ...;Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 5B7

  • Venue:
  • Information Sciences: an International Journal
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

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.