research-article

RERAN: timing- and touch-sensitive record and replay for Android

Authors:

Iulian Neamtiu,

Todd MillsteinAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '13: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 72 - 81

Published: 18 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Touchscreen-based devices such as smartphones and tablets are gaining popularity but their rich input capabilities pose new development and testing complications. To alleviate this problem, we present an approach and tool named RERAN that permits record-and-replay for the Android smartphone platform. Existing GUI-level record-and-replay approaches are inadequate due to the expressiveness of the smartphone domain, in which applications support sophisticated GUI gestures, depend on inputs from a variety of sensors on the device, and have precise timing requirements among the various input events. We address these challenges by directly capturing the low-level event stream on the phone, which includes both GUI events and sensor events, and replaying it with microsecond accuracy. Moreover, RERAN does not require access to app source code, perform any app rewriting, or perform any modifications to the virtual machine or Android platform. We demonstrate RERAN’s applicability in a variety of scenarios, including (a) replaying 86 out of the Top-100 Android apps on Google Play; (b) reproducing bugs in popular apps, e.g., Firefox, Facebook, Quickoffice; and (c) fast-forwarding executions. We believe that our versatile approach can help both Android developers and researchers.

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Cited By

Yu SFang CLi XLing YChen ZSu Z(2024)Effective, Platform-Independent GUI Testing via Image Embedding and Reinforcement LearningACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/367472833:7(1-27)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674728
Liu KYang MLing ZZhang YLei CLuo JFu XLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)RIoTFuzzer: Companion App Assisted Remote Fuzzing for Detecting Vulnerabilities in IoT DevicesProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670342(2341-2354)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658644.3670342
Feng SXie MXue YChen CGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)Read It, Don't Watch It: Captioning Bug Recordings AutomaticallyProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00197(2349-2361)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00197
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

RERAN: timing- and touch-sensitive record and replay for Android
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Extra-functional properties
      1. Software fault tolerance
        Checkpoint / restart

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '13: Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2013

1561 pages

ISBN:9781467330763

General Chair:
David Notkin,
Program Chairs:
Betty H. C. Cheng,
Klaus Pohl

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 18 May 2013

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ICSE '13

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SIGSOFT

ICSE '13: 35th International Conference on Software Engineering

May 18 - 26, 2013

CA, San Francisco, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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Citations

Cited By

Yu SFang CLi XLing YChen ZSu Z(2024)Effective, Platform-Independent GUI Testing via Image Embedding and Reinforcement LearningACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/367472833:7(1-27)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3674728
Liu KYang MLing ZZhang YLei CLuo JFu XLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)RIoTFuzzer: Companion App Assisted Remote Fuzzing for Detecting Vulnerabilities in IoT DevicesProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670342(2341-2354)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658644.3670342
Feng SXie MXue YChen CGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)Read It, Don't Watch It: Captioning Bug Recordings AutomaticallyProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00197(2349-2361)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00197
Huang YWang JLiu ZWang SChen CLi MWang QGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)Context-Aware Bug Reproduction for Mobile AppsProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00196(2336-2348)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00196
Guo LLin FBromberg YKermarrec AKozyrakis C(2022)Minimum viable device drivers for ARM trustzoneProceedings of the Seventeenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3492321.3519565(300-316)Online publication date: 28-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3492321.3519565
Wang WLam WXie TCadar CZhang X(2021)An infrastructure approach to improving effectiveness of Android UI testing toolsProceedings of the 30th ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis10.1145/3460319.3464828(165-176)Online publication date: 11-Jul-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3460319.3464828
Yu SFang CYun YFeng Y(2021)Layout and Image Recognition Driving Cross-Platform Automated Mobile TestingProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00139(1561-1571)Online publication date: 22-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00139
Havranek MBernal-Cárdenas CCooper NChaparro OPoshyvnayk DMoran KJuristo N(2021)V2SProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings10.1109/ICSE-Companion52605.2021.00037(65-68)Online publication date: 25-May-2021
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Lukić NTalebipour SMedvidović NHamlen KLu L(2020)Remote Control of iOS Devices via Accessibility FeaturesProceedings of the 2020 ACM Workshop on Forming an Ecosystem Around Software Transformation10.1145/3411502.3418427(35-40)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2020
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Ma YHu ZGu DZhou LMei QHuang GLiu X(2020)Roaming Through the Castle TunnelsACM Transactions on the Web10.1145/339505014:3(1-24)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
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