Methodology for the Generation of Program Test Data

Howden, William E.

doi:10.1109/t-c.1975.224259

Cited by 163 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…By traversing the generated AST, the tool performs a depth-first search of the Java method's control-flow graph, considering all the paths that execute the body of each loop in the method at most K times, where K is a parameter of the tool. Consequently, our tool satisfies a finitely applicable variant of the common path-coverage criterion [4], similar to the loop count-K criterion originally proposed in [42].…”

Section: Test Generation Tool Based On Our Relational Symbolic Executmentioning

confidence: 97%

Relational symbolic execution of SQL code for unit testing of database programs

Marcozzi

Vanhoof

Hainaut

2015

Science of Computer Programming

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Symbolic execution is a technique enabling the automatic generation of test inputs that exercise a set of execution paths within a code unit to be tested. If the paths cover a sufficient part of the code under test, the test data offer a representative view of the actual behaviour of this code. This notably enables detecting errors and correcting faults. Relational databases are ubiquitous in software, but symbolic execution of code units that manipulate them remains a non-trivial problem, particularly because of the complex structure of such databases and the complex behaviour of SQL statements. Finding errors in such code units is yet critical, as it can avoid corrupting important data. In this work, we define a symbolic execution translating database manipulation code directly into constraints and integrate it with a more traditional symbolic execution of normal program code. The database tables are represented by relational symbols and the SQL statements by relational constraints over these symbols. An algorithm based on these principles is presented for the symbolic execution of simple Java methods that implement transactional use cases by reading and writing in a relational database, the latter subject to data integrity constraints. The algorithm is integrated in a test generation tool and experimented over sample code. The target language for the constraints produced by the tool is the SMT-Lib standard and the used solver is Microsoft Z3. The results show that the proposed approach enables generating meaningful test data, including valid database content, in reasonable time. In particular, the Z3 solver is shown to be more scalable than the Alloy solver, used in our previous work, for solving relational constraints.

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Section: Test Generation Tool Based On Our Relational Symbolic Executmentioning

confidence: 97%

Relational symbolic execution of SQL code for unit testing of database programs

Marcozzi

Vanhoof

Hainaut

2015

Science of Computer Programming

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“…So-called 'subdomain testing' divides an input domain into a manageable number of subsets (subdomains) with tests selected in each subdomain. There is a substantial literature on subdomain testing 2 beginning with the work of Howden [27,28]. In software reliability engineering (SRE), subdomains are used in a way that is close to the present purpose.…”

Section: Dilemma Of Varying Software Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Software component composition: a subdomain‐based testing‐theory foundation

Hamlet

2007

Software Testing Verif & Rel

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Composition of software elements into assemblies (systems) is a fundamental aspect of software development. It is an important strength of formal mathematical specification that the descriptions of elements can be precisely composed into the descriptions of assemblies. Testing, on the other hand, is usually thought to be "non-compositional." Testing provides information about any executable software element, but testing descriptions have not been combined to describe assemblies of elements. The underlying reason for the compositional deficiency of testing is that tests are samples. When two elements are composed, the input samples (test points) for the first lead to an output sample, but it does not match the input test points of the second, following element.The current interest in software components and component-based software development (CBSD) provides an ideal context for investigating elements and assemblies. In CBSD, the elements (components) are analyzed without knowledge of the system(s) to be later assembled. A fundamental testing theory of component composition must use measured component properties (test results) to predict system properties.This paper proposes a testing-based theory of software component composition based on subdomains. It shows how to combine subdomain tests of components into testing predictions for arbitrarily complex assemblies formed by sequence, conditional, and iteration constructions. The basic construction of the theory applies to functional behavior, but the theory can also predict system non-functional properties from component subdomain tests. Compared to the alternative of actually building and testing a system, the theoretical predictions are computationally more efficient. The theory can also be described as an exercise in modeling. Components are replaced by abstractions derived from testing them, and these models are manipulated to model system behavior.

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“…Problem may arise how a tester selects the path that meets with the defined testing objective defined by [14]. This paper presents an approach by which the tester selects the modified path.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficient Path Selection Strategy Based on Static Analysis for Regression Testing

Debbarma¹,

Tiwari²,

Misra³

2013

IJCTE

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Abstract-Regression testing is used to revalidate modified program and provide confidence that changes does not harm the behavior of the existing code. Test suites grows in size as software evolve, a simple approach of regression testing is re-test all approach in which all the pre-existing test suites are executed on the code but it is too expensive and increase the cost of testing activity. Different problems have been involved with regression testing, e.g. test suites minimization problem, test selection problem, coverage identification problem, test case execution problem, test case maintenance problem etc. Another problem may occur, when tester has to select the changed paths from the set of modified paths for test case execution. This paper presents a new path selection strategy based on static analysis for regression testing which enables the tester to execute the test cases in an order that increases their effectiveness to find faults taking minimum efforts. With the proposed approach, tester can select the paths among the set of paths in an order to achieve the testing objective. Infeasible paths are also identified by the proposed approach which can reduce the effort, time, and cost.

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Methodology for the Generation of Program Test Data

Cited by 163 publications

References 3 publications

Relational symbolic execution of SQL code for unit testing of database programs

Relational symbolic execution of SQL code for unit testing of database programs

Software component composition: a subdomain‐based testing‐theory foundation

Efficient Path Selection Strategy Based on Static Analysis for Regression Testing

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