Variable strength combinatorial testing of concurrent programs  

作　　者：Xiaofang QI Jun HE Peng WANG Huayang ZHOU 

机构地区：[1]School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China [2]Key Laboratory of Computer Network and Information Integration, Ministry of Education Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China [3]NARI Relays Electric Cooperation, Nanjing 211102, China

出　　处：《Frontiers of Computer Science》2016年第4期631-643,共13页中国计算机科学前沿（英文版）

摘　　要：Reachability testing is an important approach to testing concurrent programs. It generates and exercises syn- chronization sequences automatically and on-the-fly without saving any test history. Existing reach, ability testing can be classified into exhaustive and t-way testing. Exhaustive testing is impractical in many cases whilie t-way testing may decrease the capability of fault detection in some cases. In this paper, we present a variable strengda reachability testing strategy, which adopts the dynamic framework of reachability testing and uses a variable strength combinatorial strategy. Different parameter groups are provided with different covering strength. Variable strength testing covers no t-way combinations but the necessary combinations of parameters having mutual interactions in a concurrent program. It is more reasonable than t-way testing because uniform interactions between parameters do not often exist in concurrent systems. We propose a merging algorithm that implements the variable strength combinatorial testing strategy and conduct our experiment on several concurrent programs. The experimental results indicate that our variable strength reachability testing reaches a good tradeoff between the effectiveness and efficiency. It can keep the same capability of fault detection as exhaustive reachability testing while substantially reducing the number of synchronization sequences and decreasing the execution time in most cases.Reachability testing is an important approach to testing concurrent programs. It generates and exercises syn- chronization sequences automatically and on-the-fly without saving any test history. Existing reach, ability testing can be classified into exhaustive and t-way testing. Exhaustive testing is impractical in many cases whilie t-way testing may decrease the capability of fault detection in some cases. In this paper, we present a variable strengda reachability testing strategy, which adopts the dynamic framework of reachability testing and uses a variable strength combinatorial strategy. Different parameter groups are provided with different covering strength. Variable strength testing covers no t-way combinations but the necessary combinations of parameters having mutual interactions in a concurrent program. It is more reasonable than t-way testing because uniform interactions between parameters do not often exist in concurrent systems. We propose a merging algorithm that implements the variable strength combinatorial testing strategy and conduct our experiment on several concurrent programs. The experimental results indicate that our variable strength reachability testing reaches a good tradeoff between the effectiveness and efficiency. It can keep the same capability of fault detection as exhaustive reachability testing while substantially reducing the number of synchronization sequences and decreasing the execution time in most cases.

关 键 词：software testing variable strength combinatorial testing concurrency testing reachability testing 

分 类 号：TP311.5[自动化与计算机技术—计算机软件与理论] TP311[自动化与计算机技术—计算机科学与技术]