mutation testing
Software testing technique that makes small deliberate changes to code and checks whether existing tests detect them, measuring how well the tests catch faults.
Mutation testing is a software testing technique that creates mutants, versions of a program with small changes to operators, conditions, or constants, and runs the existing tests to see whether each mutant causes a failure. Mutants that make a test fail are considered killed, and the share of killed mutants, called the mutation score, is used to judge the quality of a test suite.
Unlike code coverage, which shows only whether code was executed, mutation testing measures whether tests actually detect incorrect behavior in that code. The idea was proposed in the 1970s, and tools such as PIT for Java and Stryker for JavaScript implement it.
This entry is based on AIPOST articles and widely known facts. If something is wrong, please send us a correction request.