Mutation Operators for Decision Table-Based Contracts Used in Software Testing

Abstract

The Design by Contract technique allows developers to improve source code with contracts, and testing using contracts helps to identify faults. However, the source code of the program under test is not always available. With blackbox testing, it is possible to generate contracts from specifications of the software. In this paper, we apply mutation analysis on a model of a given specifications, where mutants are initially gained by applying proposed in this paper certain mutation operators on corresponding model, and then mutated specifications are examined.

Mutation Analysis of Specification-Based Contracts in Software Testing

“…This thesis is the continuation of the 3 and extends the ideas introduced in 4 Meyer introduced Design by Contract (DbC) approach in 9 , where the author introduces also the contract notion in software development. The contract represents a mutual responsibility between caller and called units, where both promise to fulfill their requirements.…”

“…DT = (C, A, R\{r} ∪ r') 24 . Diagrams (OBDD) in 4 . The OBDD is the a BDD with a strict variable ordering 27 .…”

“…Therefore, it also implements the SNF. This thesis uses the mutation operators 4 Since MTBDD is a graph, manipulations can be performed not only on its nodes (vertices), but also on its edges (arcs). This is inspired by 25 , where graph-based structures such as DG, FSM, SC and ESG have been changed by removing or adding not only theirs vertices (nodes), but also arcs (edges).…”

“…This operation produces a new ESG-DT without edge from the current DE to the event represented by the omitted action. Meanwhile,4 claims that the insertion of the terminal node is possible only if the corresponding non-terminal node at the level adjacent to the terminal has zero or one child. Otherwise, it becomes impossible to insert a terminal node, because the maximum number of outgoing edges of non-terminal nodes in OBDD is two, therefore, due to the limitation of the number of children a third child addition is an invalid operation.…”