Generating test data for both path coverage and fault detection using genetic algorithms  

作　　者：Dunwei GONG Yan ZHANG 

机构地区：[1]School of Information and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China [2]School of Technology, Mudanjiang Normal University, Mudanjiang, 157012, China

出　　处：《Frontiers of Computer Science》2013年第6期822-837,共16页中国计算机科学前沿（英文版）

基　　金：Acknowledgements This study was jointly funded by Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities （2013XK09）, the National Natural Science Foundation of China （Grant No. 61075061）, the Excellent Young Scholars of Higher University of Heilongjiang Province （1252G063）, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province （BK2012566）, the Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education （20100095110006）, the Excellent Creative Team Foundation of China University of Mining and Technology （2011ZCX002）, and the Key Advanced Research Program of Mudanjiang Normal University （SY201216）.

摘　　要：The aim of software testing is to find faults in a program under test, so generating test data that can expose the faults of a program is very important. To date, current stud- ies on generating test data for path coverage do not perform well in detecting low probability faults on the covered path. The automatic generation of test data for both path coverage and fault detection using genetic algorithms is the focus of this study. To this end, the problem is first formulated as a bi-objective optimization problem with one constraint whose objectives are the number of faults detected in the traversed path and the risk level of these faults, and whose constraint is that the traversed path must be the target path. An evolution- ary algorithm is employed to solve the formulated model, and several types of fault detection methods are given. Finally, the proposed method is applied to several real-world programs, and compared with a random method and evolutionary opti- mization method in the following three aspects： the number of generations and the time consumption needed to generate desired test data, and the success rate of detecting faults. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method can effectively generate test data that not only traverse the target path but also detect faults lying in it.The aim of software testing is to find faults in a program under test, so generating test data that can expose the faults of a program is very important. To date, current stud- ies on generating test data for path coverage do not perform well in detecting low probability faults on the covered path. The automatic generation of test data for both path coverage and fault detection using genetic algorithms is the focus of this study. To this end, the problem is first formulated as a bi-objective optimization problem with one constraint whose objectives are the number of faults detected in the traversed path and the risk level of these faults, and whose constraint is that the traversed path must be the target path. An evolution- ary algorithm is employed to solve the formulated model, and several types of fault detection methods are given. Finally, the proposed method is applied to several real-world programs, and compared with a random method and evolutionary opti- mization method in the following three aspects： the number of generations and the time consumption needed to generate desired test data, and the success rate of detecting faults. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method can effectively generate test data that not only traverse the target path but also detect faults lying in it.

关 键 词：software testing path coverage fault detection test data multi-objective optimization genetic algorithms 

分 类 号：TP311.52[自动化与计算机技术—计算机软件与理论] TN949.12[自动化与计算机技术—计算机科学与技术]