Programming paper: A vast number of software systems include components that parse and process structured input. In addition to programming languages, which are analyzed by compilers or interpreters, there are numerous components that process standardized or proprietary data formats of varying complexity. Even if s...

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Researchers developed an automated approach for generating inputs to improve grammar mining from existing parsers. The method uses Dynamic Symbolic Execution with iterative expansion and a three-phase approach to overcome limitations when analyzing structured input parsers. Testing on eleven benchmark applications showed the technique achieves high precision and recall while uncovering edge cases typically missed by existing grammar miners like Mimid. This enables software engineers to automatically reconstruct specifications from legacy parsers without manual input generation.

Generating Inputs for Grammar Mining using Dynamic Symbolic Execution