Path-oriented random testing through iterative partitioning (IP-PRT)

Authors: ESMAEEL NIKRAVAN, SAEED PARSA

Abstract: Path-oriented random testing aims at generating a uniformly distributed sequence of test data from a program input domain space to traverse a desired execution path of the program. To this aim, this article proposes a new algorithm to refine a program inputs domain space from invalid subdomains not covering the path. The validity of the subdomains is checked by a constraint propagation method against the path constraints (PCs). The proposed algorithm uses a divide and conquer technique to iteratively split the inputs domain into subdomains and each time refutes those subdomains that are inconsistent with the PCs. The remaining shrunken subdomains provide all possible test data covering the desired path. Obviously, the more accurate the input domain is, the more effective test data will result. Experiments show the proposed method outperformed other related methods on a set of classical benchmark programs.

Keywords: Test data generation, random testing, path-oriented random testing, constraint propagation

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