A comprehensive study of code-removal patches in automated program repair

Abstract Automatic Program Repair (APR) techniques can promisingly help reduce the cost of debugging. Many relevant APR follow generate-and-validate approach, that is, faulty program is iteratively modified with different change operators and then validated a test suite until plausible patch generated. In particular, Kali technique developed to investigate possibility generating patches by only removing code. Former studies show indeed successfully addressed several faults. This paper addresses single particular case code-removal in automated repair. We reasons scenarios make their creation possible, relationship implemented developers. Our study reveals are often insufficient fix bugs, proposes comprehensive taxonomy provides evidence problems may affect suites, opening new opportunities for researchers field automatic