Patent ID: 7539977

Claim:
An automated method for reducing an amount of code necessary for reproducing an error within programming language code comprising: parsing the programming language code by use of an automated parser; identifying optional nodes of a hierarchical tree of the programming language code, wherein each node of the hierarchical tree corresponds to a defined type of programming language construct, and upon detecting a test case error, locating the error in the programming code by: selecting a target node from the Optional nodes; excluding the target node and sub-nodes of the target node from the programming language code; determining whether the programming language code, after exclusion of the target node and sub-nodes of the target node, passes at least one test case; identifying the target node and sub-nodes of the target node as necessary for reproducing the error if the at least one test case is passed; and if the at least one test case is failed, including the target node; and repeating the steps of selecting a target node, excluding the target node, and determining whether the programming code passes the at least one test case for a next target node.