Integration Test of Classes and Aspects with a Multi-Evolutionary and Coupling-Based Approach

The integration test of aspect-oriented systems involves the determination of an order to integrate and test classes and aspects, which should be associated to a minimal possible stubbing cost. To determine such order is not trivial because different factors influence on the stubbing process. Many times these factors are in conflict and diverse good solutions are possible. Due to this, promising results have been obtained with multi-objective and evolutionary algorithms that generally optimize two coupling measures: number of attributes and methods. However, the problem can be more effectively addressed considering as many as coupling measures could be associated to the stubbing process. Therefore, this paper introduces MECBA, a Multi-Evolutionary and Coupling-Based Approach to the test and integration order problem, which includes the definition of models to represent the dependency between modules and to quantify the stubbing costs. The approach is instantiated and evaluated considering four AspectJ programs and four coupling measures. The results represent a good trade-off between the objectives and an example of use of the obtained results shows how they can be used to reduce test effort and costs.