Using symbolic execution to guide test generation

Although a number of weaknesses of symbolic execution, when used for software testing, have been highlighted in the literature, the recent resurgence of strongly‐typed languages has created opportunities for re‐examining symbolic execution to determine whether these shortfalls can be overcome. This paper discusses symbolic execution in general and makes two contributions: (a) overcoming one of the key problems, analysing programs with indexed arrays; and (b) describing the incorporation of a symbolic execution module for test case generation into an integrated testing tool. For methods which index arrays, a new approach determines all the possible values of each array index, allowing the generation of equivalence classes for every possible combination of array element aliases. An incremental simplification approach, which converts path expressions to canonical forms in order to identify infeasible paths at the earliest opportunity and thus reduce the analysis time, is also described. Symbolic execution is most effective when included in an integrated test and analysis environment: a component test bench was built with a symbolic execution module integrated into it, providing a toolbox of software component test and code analysis methods aimed at programmers at all levels. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Constraint-based automatic test data generation

A novel technique for automatically generating test data is presented. The technique is based on mutation analysis and creates test data that approximate relative adequacy. It is a fault-based technique that uses algebraic constraints to describe test cases designed to find particular types of faults. A set of tools (collectively called Godzilla) that automatically generates constraints and solves them to create test cases for unit and module testing has been implemented. Godzilla has been integrated with the Mothra testing system and has been used as an effective way to generate test data that kill program mutants. The authors present an initial list of constraints and discuss some of the problems that have been solved to develop the complete implementation of the technique     

Using static analysis to improve automatic test generation

Conformance testing is still the main industrial validation technique for telecommunication protocols. In practice, the automatic construction of test cases based on finite-state models is hindered by the state explosion problem. We try to reduce its magnitude by using static analysis techniques in order to obtain smaller but equivalent models. Published online: 24 January 2003     

Cloud-based automatic test data generation framework

Designing test cases is one of the most crucial activities in software testing process. Manual test case design might result in inadequate testing outputs due to lack of expertise and/or skill requirements. This article delivers automatic test data generation framework by effectively utilizing soft computing technique with Apache Hadoop MapReduce as the parallelization framework. We have evaluated and analyzed statistically our proposed framework using real world open source libraries. The experimental results conducted on Hadoop cluster with ten nodes are effective and our framework significantly outperforms other existing cloud-based testing models.     

An integrated automatic test data generation system

The Godzilla automatic test data generator is an integrated collection of tools that implements a relatively new test data generation method—constraint-based testing—that is based on mutation analysis. Constraint-based testing integrates mutation analysis with several other testing techniques, including statement coverage, branch coverage, domain perturbation, and symbolic evaluation. Because Godzilla uses a rule-based approach to generate test data, it is easily extendible to allow new testing techniques to be integrated into the current system. This article describes the system that has been built to implement constraint-based testing. Godzilla's design emphasizes orthogonality and modularity, allowing relatively easy extensions. Godzilla's internal structure and algorithms are described with emphasis on internal structures of the system and the engineering problems that were solved during the implementation.Parts of this research were supported by Contract F30602-85-C-0255 through Rome Air Development Center while the author was a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology.     

类对象测试数据自动生成研究

为了解决类对象测试数据的自动化生成问题,研究了基于UML(Unified Modeling Language,统一建模语言)状态图和遗传算法的类对象测试数据自动生成枝术.在扩展海明距离法的基础上进行适应度缩放,提出了一种在遗传算法中生成类对象测试数据的适应度函数改进方法,提高了遗传算法的收敛速度.最后将方法实验于实际系统,实验结果显示在生成类对象测试数据的效率上有明显的提高.     

一种用于测试数据生成的动态程序切片算法

介绍了程序切片技术的基本概念，提出了一种基于前向分析的动态程序切片算法，探讨了程序切片在软件测试数据生成中的应用，结果表明可以有效地提高基于路径的测试数据生成效率。     

Detecting buffer overflow via automatic test input data generation

Buffer overflows cause serious problems in various categories of software systems. In critical systems, such as health-care, nuclear or aerospace software applications, a buffer overflow may cause severe threats to humans or severe economic losses. If they occur in network or security applications, they can be exploited to gain administrator privileges, perform system attacks, access unauthorized data, or misuse the system. This paper proposes a combination of genetic algorithms, linear programming, evolutionary testing, and static and dynamic information to detect buffer overflows. The newly proposed test input generation process avoids the need for human intervention to define and tune genetic algorithm weights and therefore it becomes completely automated. The process that guides the genetic search towards the detection of buffer overflow relies on a fitness function that takes into account static and dynamic information. Reported results of our case studies, consisting of two sets of open-source programs show that the new process and fitness function outperform previously published approaches.     

面向路径的测试数据自动生成工具的设计

设计了一个通用的基于控制流和数据流的结构测试数据自动生成的工具。该工具根据控制流和数据流测试中所采用的覆盖标准来选取测试路径,并以改进后的迭代松弛法为核心,对所选取的路径生成测试数据。同时工具采用Fibonacci法优化选取路径,对不可达路径进行处理,并对测试数据的分支覆盖率、DCP覆盖率等进行了统计。实验结果表明该工具是可行的。     

基于演化算法的结构测试数据自动生成方法评述

结构测试数据自动生成是结构测试结构测试数据自动生成方法后,重点对基于演化算法的结构测试数据自动生成方法加以评述.归纳了该方法的基本思想和基本流程,按照适应度函数构造方式的不同将其划分为面向覆盖法、面向距离法和综合法三大类,并结合相关文献分析了这三类方法各自的技术特点,比较了各自的优劣.最后,指出了存在的不足,探讨了发展方向.     

The automatic generation of test data for a relational database

A structure for a relational database system is described which involves a new structure called a linkage. A linkage is a set of interdependent relations. Together with relations, tuples, attributes and attribute-values, this provides a hierarchy of structures within which one may specify and generate test data which are not only valid with respect to attribute domains, but preserve dependencies. The discussion refers to an experimental system QIKSYS in which these ideas have been implemented and some of the features of this system are described.     

基于改进PSO算法的测试数据自动生成研究

为了提高软件测试中测试数据自动生成的效率,提出了一种基于改进PSO算法的测试数据自动生成的方法。通过在标准的PSO算法中引入人工免疫的思想,保持了群体的多样性,从而有效避免标准PSO算法易陷入局部最优的问题,提高了算法全局搜索的能力,增强了算法的整体性能。实验结果表明,利用改进后的PSO算法寻找最优解所需的迭代次数和时间明显少于标准粒子群算法,生成测试数据的速度快、效率高。     

基于混合遗传算法的测试数据自动生成研究

为了提高软件测试中测试数据自动生成的效率,提出了一种基于混合遗传算法的测试数据自动生成的方法.在传统的遗传算法中引入模拟退火的思想,先利用遗传算法快速搜索到近优解,再使用模拟退火算法局部寻优,实现两种算法的优势互补.实验结果表明,该算法有效避免了早熟问题,具有收敛速度快、搜索效率高等特点,能够更加快速地自动生成测试数据.     

The combinatorial design approach to automatic test generation

The combinatorial design method substantially reduces testing costs. The authors describe an application in which the method reduced test plan development from one month to less than a week. In several experiments, the method demonstrated good code coverage and fault detection ability     

Automatic test data generation using genetic algorithm and program dependence graphs

The complexity of software systems has been increasing dramatically in the past decade, and software testing as a labor-intensive component is becoming more and more expensive. Testing costs often account for up to 50% of the total expense of software development; hence any techniques leading to the automatic generation of test data will have great potential to considerably reduce costs. Existing approaches of automatic test data generation have achieved some success by using evolutionary computation algorithms, but they are unable to deal with Boolean variables or enumerated types and they need to be improved in many other aspects. This paper presents a new approach utilizing program dependence analysis techniques and genetic algorithms (GAs) to generate test data. A set of experiments using the new approach is reported to show its effectiveness and efficiency based upon established criterion.     

省计算机等级考试上报数据实现自动生成的改进

省计算机等级考试是浙江高校重要的一项考试。考生相关考试信息汇总形成的上报数据库一般是由二部分组成的,一部分为上机考试所形成的上报数据,一部分是理论考试所形成的上报数据。为了把省计算机等级考试的上机部分和理论部分整合成一个完整的上报数据,在研究上机考试所形成的上报数据自动生成的基础上,经过新的编码和检验,实现了上报数据的自动生成。改进工作采用VBA编程实现,并正确地形成了上报数据的缺考库。     

A novel strategy for automatic test data generation using soft computing technique

Software testing is one of the most crucial and analytical aspect to assure that developed software meets prescribed quality standards. Software development process invests at least 50% of the total cost in software testing process. Optimum and efficacious test data design of software is an important and challenging activity due to the nonlinear structure of software. Moreover, test case type and scope determines the quality of test data. To address this issue, software testing tools should employ intelligence based soft computing techniques like particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA) to generate smart and efficient test data automatically. This paper presents a hybrid PSO and GA based heuristic for automatic generation of test suites. In this paper, we described the design and implementation of the proposed strategy and evaluated our model by performing experiments with ten container classes from the Java standard library. We analyzed our algorithm statistically with test adequacy criterion as branch coverage. The performance adequacy criterion is taken as percentage coverage per unit time and percentage of faults detected by the generated test data. We have compared our work with the heuristic based upon GA, PSO, existing hybrid strategies based on GA and PSO and memetic algorithm. The results showed that the test case generation is efficient in our work.     

基于遗传算法的类对象测试数据自动生成研究

在测试数据自动化生成方法中,对类对象测试数据的生成目前在实际中还没有完善的解决方法。针对这个不足,研究了基于遗传算法的类对象测试数据自动生成技术。在扩展海明距离法的基础上,提出了一种在遗传算法中生成类对象测试数据的适应度函数改进方法,并在理论上证明了该方法在缩短执行时间上的可行性。最后将方法实验于实际系统,实验结果显示在生成类对象测试数据的效率和准确性上都有明显的提高。     

基于AR规则的全路径测试数据自动生成方法

基于全路径的研究现正处于起步阶段,提出了一种全新的NRPS算法（不重复路径搜索算法）和AR规则来对程序的源文件进行静态分析,生成有向无负权图,进而得到不重复路径集;并结合粒子群优化算法最终生成最优测试用例。实验表明,该方法具有可行性。