Forward Dynamic Slicing of Web Applications

Abstract

We present a technique to compute dynamic slices for web applications using forward slicing approach. In our work, we have considered JSP (JavaServer Pages) based web applications. The slicing technique can efficiently be applied using an intermediate representation of a web application. We have proposed a graph called Web Dependence Graph (WDG) as the intermediate representation to correctly represent web applications. We have named our technique Web Application Forward Dynamic Slicing (WAFDS) Algorithm. The WAFDS algorithm first constructs the WDG. Then, the web application is executed for a given input, specified in slicing criteria, and the nodes in WDG resembling the executed statements are marked. Finally, the WDG is traversed in forward direction only along the marked nodes. The traversal is started from the desired point specified in the slicing criterion. The statements corresponding to the traversed marked nodes constitute the required dynamic slice for the given slicing criterion. During traversal along the marked nodes, the dynamic slice at each node is computed. Thus, for a given slicing criterion, the dynamic slice can be obtained in O(1) time.