Overview

Major is an efficient and flexible mutation analysis framework that supports:

1. generating and embedding mutants during compilation;

2. exporting source-code mutants;

3. suppressing equivalent mutants;

4. computing the mutant-detection rate and the set of live mutants for a given set of tests;

5. computing a complete mutant-test detection matrix for a given set of tests.

The Major mutation framework provides three main components:

1. Mutator: a mutator plugin for the javac Java compiler.

2. Mml: a DSL for customizing mutant generation.

3. Analyzer: a test runner that efficiently determines live mutants, the mutant-detection ratio, or a full mutant-test matrix.

Installation

The installation is simple — all you need is included in the Major release package!

• Download major.zip (the most recent release).

• Unzip major.zip, which creates the major directory:

  • bin (executables for Major’s components)
    • ant
    • major
    • mmlc
  • config (archive and sources of Major’s run-time class)
  • doc (manual of the current version)
    • major.html
  • example (examples for using Major}
    • ant
      • …
      • run.sh
    • standalone
      • …
      • run.sh
    • runAll.sh
  • lib (libraries used by Major)
  • mml (example mml files)

Getting started

Verify that you are using a Java-8 compiler by running javac -version.

The example directory provides two examples for how to use Major to perform mutation analysis:

• ant: mutation analysis using Apache Ant.

• standalone: mutation analysis using Major standalone.

Execute runAll.sh within the example directory to run all examples or run.sh in a subdirectory for a particular example.