Testability transformation

A testability transformation is a source-to-source transformation that aims to improve the ability of a given test generation method to generate test data for the original program. We introduce testability transformation, demonstrating that it differs from traditional transformation, both theoretically and practically, while still allowing many traditional transformation rules to be applied. We illustrate the theory of testability transformation with an example application to evolutionary testing. An algorithm for flag removal is defined and results are presented from an empirical study which show how the algorithm improves both the performance of evolutionary test data generation and the adequacy level of the test data so-generated.

[1]  J. Voas,et al.  Software Testability: The New Verification , 1995, IEEE Softw..

[2]  Zohar Manna,et al.  The Evolution of Programs: Automatic Program Modification , 1977, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[3]  Martin P. Ward.  Reverse Engineering through Formal Transformation: Knuths 'Polynomial Addition' Algorithm , 1994, Comput. J..

[4]  John A. Clark,et al.  The Way Forward for Unifying Dynamic Test Case Generation: The Optimisation-based Approach , 1998 .

[5]  John H. Holland,et al.  Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems: An Introductory Analysis with Applications to Biology, Control, and Artificial Intelligence , 1992 .

[6]  Dorothea Heiss-Czedik,et al.  An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. , 1997, Artificial Life.

[7]  Aniello Cimitile,et al.  Conditioned program slicing , 1998, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[8]  Mark David Weiser,et al.  Program slices: formal, psychological, and practical investigations of an automatic program abstraction method , 1979 .

[9]  André Baresel,et al.  Fitness Function Design To Improve Evolutionary Structural Testing , 2002, GECCO.

[10]  Julian F. Miller,et al.  Genetic and Evolutionary Computation — GECCO 2003 , 2003, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[11]  Helmuth Partsch,et al.  Specification and Transformation of Programs - A Formal Approach to Software Development , 1990, Texts and Monographs in Computer Science.

[12]  Zohar Manna,et al.  The evolution of programs: a system for automatic program modification , 1977, POPL '77.

[13]  Martin S. Feather,et al.  A System for Assisting Program Transformation , 1982, TOPL.

[14]  Mark Harman,et al.  Amorphous program slicing , 1997, Proceedings Fifth International Workshop on Program Comprehension. IWPC'97.

[15]  David W. Binkley,et al.  Computing amorphous program slices using dependence graphs , 1999, SAC '99.

[16]  Roy P. Pargas,et al.  Test-Data Generation Using Genetic Algorithms , 1999, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[17]  Lyle Ramshaw,et al.  Eliminating go to's while preserving program structure , 1988, JACM.

[18]  Gary McGraw,et al.  Generating Software Test Data by Evolution , 2001, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[19]  Mark Harman,et al.  Improving Evolutionary Testing By Flag Removal , 2002, GECCO.

[20]  John Darlington,et al.  A Transformation System for Developing Recursive Programs , 1977, J. ACM.

[21]  Mark Harman,et al.  An Empirical Investigation of the Influence of a Type of Side Effects on Program Comprehension , 2003, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[22]  Joachim Wegener,et al.  Evolutionary test environment for automatic structural testing , 2001, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[23]  Alfred V. Aho,et al.  Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools , 1986, Addison-Wesley series in computer science / World student series edition.

[24]  Bryan F. Jones,et al.  Automatic structural testing using genetic algorithms , 1996, Softw. Eng. J..