Constructor Call Mutator cannot mutate creations of super class in constructor

[hcoles]

From stefan.p...@googlemail.com on February 29, 2012 21:43:38

The MethodCallMethodVisitor has one draw back/problem: In a constructor it cannot mutate creations of the super class as they do not differ from the own constructor call:

public class A extends B {
   private B b;
   public A() {
     super();
     this.b = new B();
   }
}

does not result in any mutation because the visitor cannot distinguish
between "super()" and "new B()". I don't have a solution to this
problem. Both method calls can only be distinguished by their
context/position.

A use case for that issue would be an object used as lock:

public class MyThreadSafeClass { // note: extends java.lang.Object
  private final Object lock;
  public MyThreadSafeClass() {
    super();
    this.lock = new Object();
  }
  // some code using lock in synchronized blocks
}

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/pitestrunner/issues/detail?id=34