Exploring test adequacy for database systems

Database systems are an important asset for many businesses. As such, it is important to test database systems thoroughly, as any faults that remain hidden may significantly impact critical business processes. However, these systems bring additional complexities that make them amongst the most complex and difficult kind of system to test. While software testing in general is a well-developed area, techniques specifically aimed at testing database systems are still in their infancy. In this paper, we present a family of test adequacy criteria for database systems that can be used to determine the “quality” of a test suite. These criteria consider various aspects of database systems including the source code structure (in terms of patterns of database operations), the existence of define–use pairs between database operations and the interactions between different applications of the database system. The criteria we present differ from existing adequacy criteria as we focus on a general definition of a database test case that is based on intensional constraints. This overcomes the problems associated with adequacy being constrained to a single static database state. We also consider transactional operators that alter the behaviour of a database system and influence adequacy.