A Survey of Dynamic Analysis and Test Generation for JavaScript

Abstract

JavaScript has become one of the most prevalent programming languages. Unfortunately, some of the unique properties that contribute to this popularity also make JavaScript programs prone to errors and difficult for program analyses to reason about. These properties include the highly dynamic nature of the language, a set of unusual language features, a lack of encapsulation mechanisms, and the “no crash” philosophy. This article surveys dynamic program analysis and test generation techniques for JavaScript targeted at improving the correctness, reliability, performance, security, and privacy of JavaScript-based software.