Welcome to Check 'n' Crash

Abstract

We present an automatic error-detection approach that combines static checking and concrete test-case generation. Our approach consists of taking the abstract error conditions inferred using theorem proving techniques by a static checker (ESC/Java), deriving specific error conditions using a constraint solver, and producing concrete test cases (with the JCrasher tool) that are executed to determine whether an error truly exists. The combined technique has advantages over both static checking and automatic testing individually.

Compared to ESC/Java, we eliminate spurious warnings and improve the ease-of-comprehension of error reports through the production of Java counterexamples.
Compared to JCrasher, we eliminate the blind search of the input space, thus reducing the testing time and increasing the test quality.

Overview

Check 'n' Crash uses ESC/Java to statically check the testee for potential bugs. In this example, ESC/Java warns about a potential runtime exception in the analyzed method when passing a negative parameter (the ESC/Java warning is not shown). Check 'n' Crash then compiles ESC/Java's bug warnings to concrete test cases to eliminate those warnings that cannot be reproduced in actual executions. In this example, Check 'n' Crash produces a test case that passes -1 into the method and confirms that it throws the runtime exception ESC/Java has warned about.

Download

Download Check 'n' Crash--it's free.

DSD-Crasher is the successor of Check 'n' Crash.

Technical Talks

PDF and PPT overview slides updated on October 18, 2007.
Video of the Microsoft Research talk I gave in Redmond, Washington on 28 August 2007.
PDF slides I used for my talk on our follow-up tool DSD-Crasher at ISSTA in Portland, Maine on July 20, 2006.
Video of the Google tech talk I gave in Mountain View, California on July 13, 2006.
PDF slides I used for my Check 'n' Crash talk at ICSE in St. Louis, Missouri on May 20, 2005.
PDF slides I used at the Georgia Tech SPARC seminar in Atlanta, Georgia on January 24, 2005.

Technical Papers

This invited overview paper compares Check 'n' Crash to its successor DSD-Crasher and predecessor JCrasher. It appeared in the Proceedings of the First International Conference on Tests And Proofs (TAP), February 2007.
Our follow-up paper on DSD-Crasher appeared in the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), July 2006.
The Check 'n' Crash paper appeared in the Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), May 2005.
Check 'n' Crash is the successor of and contains JCrasher. The JCrasher paper appeared in Software--Practice & Experience, September 2004.

Others using Check 'n' Crash in teaching

Freie Universität Berlin: Softwaretechnik-Praktikum

Others using Check 'n' Crash in research

Aaron Tomb et al. at UC Santa Cruz and RIACS/NASA Ames
- Comparison with their advanced testing tool in ISSTA 2007
Sarah Smith Heckman et al. at North Carolina State University
- Rank output of bug finding tools. Short papers in ICSE 2007, ISSRE 2006, and ISSRE 2005.

License

We grant a liberal open source license ("MIT license").

People

Acknowledgment

This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/).
See our license page for a list of third party components included in Check 'n' Crash.