BAFLineDP: Code Bilinear Attention Fusion Framework for Line-Level Defect Prediction

Abstract

Software defect prediction aims to identify defect-prone code, aiding developers in optimizing testing resource allocation. Most defect prediction approaches primarily focus on coarse-grained, file-level defect prediction, which fails to provide developers with the precision required to locate defective code. Recently, some researchers have proposed fine-grained, line-level defect prediction methods. However, most of these approaches lack an in-depth consideration of the contextual semantics of code lines and neglect the local interaction information among code lines. To address the above issues, this paper presents a line-level defect prediction method grounded in a code bilinear attention fusion framework (BAFLineDP). This method discerns defective code files and lines by integrating source code line semantics, line-level context, and local interaction information between code lines and line-level context. Through an extensive analysis involving within- and cross-project defect prediction across 9 distinct projects encompassing 32 releases, our results demonstrate that BAFLineDP outperforms current advanced file-level and line-level defect prediction approaches.