Reducing logic test set size while preserving fault detection

Abstract

Logic criteria demand inputs that guarantee detection of certain faults. One such criterion, MUMCUT, is composed of three criteria, where each constituent criterion ensures the detection of specific faults. In practice, the criteria may overlap in terms of faults detected, leading to redundant tests, but due to the fact that infeasible requirements do not result in tests, all the constituent criteria are needed. The key insight of this paper is that analysis of the feasibility of the constituent criteria can reduce test set size without sacrificing fault detection for specific faults. This paper introduces a new logic criterion, Minimal‐MUMCUT, and shows how it can apply to minimal DNF, minimal CNF, and general form Boolean expressions. With Minimal‐MUMCUT, a determination is made of which constituent criteria are feasible, and hence necessary, at the level of individual literals and terms. An empirical study found that Minimal‐MUMCUT reduces the test set size, without sacrificing fault detection, regardless of the predicate format. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving logic-based testing

“…MUMCUT generally only applies to predicates written in Disjunctive Normal Form (DNF), although extensions to more general forms have been explored [36]. As originally defined, MUMCUT generates many unnecessary tests; a problem that has been addressed by several refinements to MUMCUT [13,19,20,22], resulting in minimal-MUMCUT.…”

“…The full, algorithmic, definition for minimal-MUMCUT is too bulky for this paper, and can be found in Kaminski and Ammann's paper [22].…”

Better predicate testing

“…MUMCUT generally only applies to predicates written in Disjunctive Normal Form (DNF), although extensions to more general forms have been explored [27]. MUM-CUT generates many unnecessary tests; various refinements of MUMCUT have addressed this shortcoming [9,14,15,16].…”