Decomposing constraints for better coverage in test data generation

作者：Qian Ju^*; Liu Kun; Chen Hao; Zhang Zhiyi; Chen Zhe

来源：International Journal of Performability Engineering, 2018, 14(6): 1251-1262.

DOI：10.23940/ijpe.18.06.p16.12511262

• Benchmark programs
• Black boxes
• Constraint decompositions
• Constraint Solving
• Coverage criteria
• Interface constraints
• Test data generation
• Test inputs

In black-box testing, a possible choice for test data generation is to derive test data from interface constraints using some constraint solving techniques. However, directly performing constraint solving to the whole constraint formula may not be able to fully leverage the information embodied in a constraint. Thus, it is difficult to obtain a high coverage test set. For example, when solving a constraint (a >0 or b <0) in a whole, we cannot guarantee that data covering sub-constraint b <0 will be involved in the test set. To address the problem, in this paper, we firstly define a hierarchy of coverage criteria at the specification constraint level. Then, algorithms are designed to decompose constraints according to such coverage criteria and to generate test input sets. The experiments on a set of benchmark programs show that decomposing constraints according to constraint-level coverage criteria does effectively lead to better coverage in test data generation.

• 出版日期2018
• 单位南京航空航天大学