InfectoMeter: A Tool that Helps to Place Bug Fixes

Given different ways to fix a failure in a program run, you may want to fix it such that future runs of the same program with other inputs do not show any effect of that fixed bug. We present InfectoMeter, a tool which provides a map of the source code for a programmer such that each statement in the source code is colored based on the impact it has on the rest of the execution. A darker line represents the point where the fix can have a higher impact, but it does not say anything about where the bug might happen. The strategy is inspired from the notion of infection in medical science. Given an infection, it can propagate throughout the whole system and affect different parts. So to fix the system, one needs to focus on the source of infection, rather than a specific element of the system. InfectoMeter implements this idea. It takes as input a unit test and provides colored source code, such that each source line's color represents the impact it has on the rest of the execution.