Bit Rate of Programs
Software Engineering
2013-08-25 v1 Information Theory
math.IT
Abstract
A program can be considered as a device that generates discrete time signals, where a signal is an execution. Shannon information rate, or bit rate, of the signals may not be uniformly distributed. When the program is specified by a finite state transition system, algorithms are provided in identifying information-rich components. For a black-box program that has a partial specification or does not even have a specification, a bit rate signal and its spectrum are studied, which make use of data compression and the Fourier transform. The signal provides a bit-rate coverage for testing the black-box while its spectrum indicates a visual representation for execution's information characteristics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1308.4774,
title = {Bit Rate of Programs},
author = {Cewei Cui and Zhe Dang and Thomas R. Fischer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1308.4774},
year = {2013}
}