An Automated Framework for Structural Test-Data Generation

Structural testing criteria are mandated in many software development standards and guidelines. The process of generating test-data to achieve 100 coverage of a given structural coverage metric is labour intensive and expensive. This paper presents an approach to automate the generation of such test-data. The test-data generation is based on the application of a dynamic optimisation-based search for the required test-data. The same approach can be be generalised to solve other test-data generation problems. Three such applications are discussed boundary value analysis, assertion run-time exception testing and component re-use testing. A prototype tool-set has been developed to facilitate the automatic generation of test-data for these structural testing problems. The results of preliminary experiments using this technique and the prototype tool-set are presented and show the e ciency and e ectiveness of this approach.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: KBSE
• Authors: Nigel Tracey, John A. Clark, Keith Mander, John A. McDermid
• Keywords: KBSE 1998, Software Engineering, Structural Testing, Structural Testing Criteria, Test-data Generation