Boundary
Values and Automated Testing
by Daniel Hoffman,
Lee White and Paul Strooper
| |
Boundary
Values and Automated Testing
by Daniel Hoffman,
Lee White and Paul Strooper
|
| formalWARE
project
formalWARE
formalWARE
|
Abstract Structural coverage approaches to software testing are mature, having been thoroughly studied for decades. Significant tool support, in the form of instrumentation for statement or branch coverage, is available in commercial compilers. While structural coverage is sensitive to which code structures are covered it is insensitive to the values of the variables when those structures are executed. Data coverage approaches, e.g., boundary value coverage, are far less mature. They are known to practitioners mostly as a few useful heuristics with very little support for automation. Because of its sensitivity to variable values, data coverage has significant potential, especially when used in combination with structural coverage. In this paper we generalize the traditional
notion of boundary coverage, and formalize it with two new data coverage
measures: $k\Bdy$ and $k\Per$. We show how to use $k\Bdy$ and $k\Per$
to automatically generate test cases, and from these, sophisticated test
suites for
Download postscript
. |
