Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps

Mattia Fazzini; Alessandro Orso

doi:10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644

Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps

Mattia Fazzini, Alessandro Orso

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

52 Scopus citations

Abstract

Testing of Android apps is particularly challenging due to the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem in terms of both devices and operating system versions. Developers must in fact ensure not only that their apps behave as expected, but also that the apps' behavior is consistent across platforms. To support this task, we propose DiffDroid, a new technique that helps developers automatically find cross-platform inconsistencies (CPIs) in mobile apps. DiffDroid combines input generation and differential testing to compare the behavior of an app on different platforms and identify possible inconsistencies. Given an app, DiffDroid (1) generates test inputs for the app, (2) runs the app with these inputs on a reference device and builds a model of the app behavior, (3) runs the app with the same inputs on a set of other devices, and (4) compares the behavior of the app on these different devices with the model of its behavior on the reference device. We implemented DiFFDRoiD and performed an evaluation of our approach on 5 benchmarks and over 130 platforms. our results show that DiFFDRoiD can identify CPis on real apps efficiently and with a limited number of false positives. DiFFDRoiD and our experimental infrastructure are publicly available.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering
Editors	Tien N. Nguyen, Grigore Rosu, Massimiliano Di Penta
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages	308-318
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Electronic)	9781538626849
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644
State	Published - Nov 20 2017
Externally published	Yes
Event	32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE 2017 - Urbana-Champaign, United States Duration: Oct 30 2017 → Nov 3 2017

Publication series

Name	ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

Other

Other	32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE 2017
Country/Territory	United States
City	Urbana-Champaign
Period	10/30/17 → 11/3/17

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under grants CCF-1320783 and CCF-1161821, and by funding from Amazon under the AWS Cloud Credits for Research program, Google, IBM Research, and Microsoft Research

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.

Publisher link

10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644

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Fazzini, M., & Orso, A. (2017). Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps. In T. N. Nguyen, G. Rosu, & M. Di Penta (Eds.), ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (pp. 308-318). Article 8115644 (ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644

Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps. / Fazzini, Mattia; Orso, Alessandro.
ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. ed. / Tien N. Nguyen; Grigore Rosu; Massimiliano Di Penta. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2017. p. 308-318 8115644 (ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Fazzini, M & Orso, A 2017, Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps. in TN Nguyen, G Rosu & M Di Penta (eds), ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering., 8115644, ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., pp. 308-318, 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, ASE 2017, Urbana-Champaign, United States, 10/30/17. https://doi.org/10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644

Fazzini M, Orso A. Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps. In Nguyen TN, Rosu G, Di Penta M, editors, ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. 2017. p. 308-318. 8115644. (ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering). doi: 10.1109/ASE.2017.8115644

Fazzini, Mattia ; Orso, Alessandro. / Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps. ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering. editor / Tien N. Nguyen ; Grigore Rosu ; Massimiliano Di Penta. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., 2017. pp. 308-318 (ASE 2017 - Proceedings of the 32nd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering).

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Automated cross-platform inconsistency detection for mobile apps

Abstract

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