Towards Automated Boundary Value Testing with Program Derivatives and Search
Paper in proceedings, 2019
In this research note we propose one such formalization of BVA by, in a similar way as to how the derivative of a function is defined in mathematics, considering (software) program derivatives. Critical to our definition is the notion of distance between inputs and outputs which we can formalize and then quantify based on ideas from Information theory.
However, for our (black-box) approach to be practical one must search for test inputs with specific properties. Coupling it with search-based software engineering is thus required and we discuss how program derivatives can be used as and within fitness functions.
This brief note does not allow a deeper, empirical investigation but we use a simple illustrative example throughout to introduce the main ideas. By combining program derivatives with search, we thus propose a practical as well as theoretically interesting technique for automated boundary value (analysis and) testing.
Partition testing
Automated software testing
Information theory
Search-based software testing
Boundary value analysis
Author
Robert Feldt
Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering for Cyber Physical Systems
Felix Dobslaw
Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering for Cyber Physical Systems
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
03029743 (ISSN) 16113349 (eISSN)
Vol. 11664Tallinn, ,
Subject Categories
Information Science
Computer Science
Computer Systems
DOI
10.1007/978-3-030-27455-9_11
ISBN
9783030274542