On detecting faults for Boolean expressions

Fault based testing aims at detecting hypothesized faults based on specifications or program source. There are some fault based techniques for testing Boolean expressions which are commonly used to model conditions in specifications as well as logical decisions in program source. The MUMCUT strategy has been proposed to generate test cases from Boolean expressions. Moreover, it detects eight common types of hypothesized faults provided that the original expression is in irredundant disjunctive normal form, IDNF. Software practitioners are more likely to write the conditions and logical decisions in general form rather than IDNF. Hence, it is interesting to investigate the fault detecting capability of the MUMCUT strategy with respect to general form Boolean expressions. In this article, we perform empirical studies to investigate the fault detection capability of the MUMCUT strategy with respect to general form Boolean expressions as well as mutated expressions. A mutated expression can be obtained from the original given Boolean expression by making a syntactic change based on a particular type of fault.

[1]  K. A. Foster,et al.  Sensitive test data for logic expressions , 1984, SOEN.

[2]  Elaine J. Weyuker,et al.  Automatically Generating Test Data from a Boolean Specification , 1994, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[3]  Y. Liu,et al.  Detecting Double Faults on Term and Literal in Boolean Expressions , 2007 .

[4]  Ying Liu,et al.  On Detection Conditions of Double FaultsRelated to Terms in Boolean Expressions , 2006, 30th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC'06).

[5]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  Requirements Specification for Process-Control Systems , 1994, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[6]  Glenford J. Myers,et al.  The art of software testing (2. ed.) , 2004 .

[7]  Kuo-Chung Tai,et al.  Test generation for Boolean expressions , 1995, Proceedings of Sixth International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering. ISSRE'95.

[8]  Nancy G. Leveson,et al.  An empirical evaluation of the MC/DC coverage criterion on the HETE-2 satellite software , 2000, 19th DASC. 19th Digital Avionics Systems Conference. Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37126).

[9]  Man F. Lau,et al.  An extended fault class hierarchy for specification-based testing , 2005, TSEM.

[10]  Richard Lai,et al.  Analyzing and Extending MUMCUT for Fault-based Testing of General Boolean Expressions , 2006, The Sixth IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (CIT'06).

[11]  Yuen-Tak Yu,et al.  A comparison of MC/DC, MUMCUT and several other coverage criteria for logical decisions , 2006, J. Syst. Softw..

[12]  Tsong Yueh Chen,et al.  Test case selection strategies based on Boolean specifications ‡ , 2001, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[13]  Steven P. Miller,et al.  Applicability of modified condition/decision coverage to software testing , 1994, Softw. Eng. J..

[14]  Glenford J. Myers,et al.  Art of Software Testing , 1979 .

[15]  Tatsuhiro Tsuchiya,et al.  Non-specification-based approaches to logic testing for software , 2002, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[16]  John Joseph Chilenski,et al.  An Investigation of Three Forms of the Modified Condition Decision Coverage (MCDC) Criterion , 2001 .

[17]  K. S. How Tai Wah,et al.  A theoretical study of fault coupling , 2000, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[18]  A. Jefferson Offutt,et al.  Investigations of the software testing coupling effect , 1992, TSEM.

[19]  Larry J Morell,et al.  A Theory of Fault-Based Testing , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[20]  Ying Liu,et al.  On Detecting Double Literal Faults in Boolean Expressions , 2007, Ada-Europe.

[21]  Kuo-Chung Tai,et al.  Theory of Fault-Based Predicate Testing for Computer Programs , 1996, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[22]  M. Morris Mano,et al.  Digital design (2nd ed.) , 1991 .

[23]  D. Richard Kuhn.  Fault classes and error detection capability of specification-based testing , 1999, TSEM.

[24]  Kenneth A. Foster.  Error Sensitive Test Cases Analysis (ESTCA) , 1980, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[25]  Tsong Yueh Chen,et al.  Test Suite Reduction and Fault Detecting Effectiveness: An Empirical Evaluation , 2001, Ada-Europe.

[26]  Tsong Yueh Chen,et al.  Automatic generation of test cases from Boolean specifications using the MUMCUT strategy , 2006, J. Syst. Softw..