Bug finding tools can find defects in software source code using an automated static analysis. This automation may be able to reduce the time spent for other testing and review activities. For this we need to have a clear understanding of how the defects found by bug finding tools relate to the defects found by other techniques. This paper describes a case study using several projects mainly from an industrial environment that were used to analyse the interrelationships. The main finding is that the bug finding tools predominantly find different defects than testing but a subset of defects found by reviews. However, the types that can be detected are analysed more thoroughly. Therefore, a combination is most advisable if the high number of false positives of the tools can be tolerated.
@cite_8: 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.
An interesting combination of static analysis tools and testing in described in @cite_8 . It is proposed to use static analysis to find potential problems and automatically generate test cases to verify if there is a real defect. However, the approach obviously does not work with maintenance-related defects.