scholarly journals Automated Test Cases and Test Data Generation for Dynamic Structural Testing in Automatic Programming Assessment Using MC/DC

Author(s):  
Rohaida Romli ◽  
Shahadath Sarker ◽  
Mazni Omar ◽  
Musyrifah Mahmod
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 4466-4473

Test data generation is the task of constructing test cases for predicting the acceptability of novel or updated software. Test data could be the original test suite taken from previous run or imitation data generated afresh specifically for this purpose. The simplest way of generating test data is done randomly but such test cases may not be competent enough in detecting all defects and bugs. In contrast, test cases can also be generated automatically and this has a number of advantages over the conventional manual method. Genetic Algorithms, one of the automation techniques, are iterative algorithms and apply basic operations repeatedly in greed for optimal solutions or in this case, test data. By finding out the most error-prone path using such test cases one can reduce the software development cost and improve the testing efficiency. During the evolution process such algorithms pass on the better traits to the next generations and when applied to generations of software test data they produce test cases that are closer to optimal solutions. Most of the automated test data generators developed so far work well only for continuous functions. In this study, we have used Genetic Algorithms to develop a tool and named it TG-GA (Test Data Generation using Genetic Algorithms) that searches for test data in a discontinuous space. The goal of the work is to analyze the effectiveness of Genetic Algorithms in automated test data generation and to compare its performance over random sampling particularly for discontinuous spaces.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2(SI)) ◽  
pp. 0515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musa Et al.

Automatic Programming Assessment (APA) has been gaining lots of attention among researchers mainly to support automated grading and marking of students’ programming assignments or exercises systematically. APA is commonly identified as a method that can enhance accuracy, efficiency and consistency as well as providing instant feedback on students’ programming solutions. In achieving APA, test data generation process is very important so as to perform a dynamic testing on students’ assignment. In software testing field, many researches that focus on test data generation have demonstrated the successful of adoption of Meta-Heuristic Search Techniques (MHST) so as to enhance the procedure of deriving adequate test data for efficient testing. Nonetheless, thus far the researches on APA have not yet usefully exploited the techniques accordingly to include a better quality program testing coverage. Therefore, this study has conducted a comparative evaluation to identify any applicable MHST to support efficient Automated Test Data Generation (ATDG) in executing a dynamic-functional testing in APA. Several recent MHST are included in the comparative evaluation combining both the local and global search algorithms ranging from the year of 2000 until 2018. Result of this study suggests that the hybridization of Cuckoo Search with Tabu Search and lévy flight as one of promising MHST to be applied, as it’s outperforms other MHST with regards to number of iterations and range of inputs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Abhishek Pandey ◽  
Soumya Banerjee

This article discusses the application of an improved version of the firefly algorithm for the test suite optimization problem. Software test optimization refers to optimizing test data generation and selection for structural testing criteria for white box testing. This will subsequently reduce the two most costly activities performed during testing: time and cost. Recently, various search-based approaches proved very interesting results for the software test optimization problem. Also, due to no free lunch theorem, scientists are continuously searching for more efficient and convergent methods for the optimization problem. In this paper, firefly algorithm is modified in a way that local search ability is improved. Levy flights are incorporated into the firefly algorithm. This modified algorithm is applied to the software test optimization problem. This is the first application of Levy-based firefly algorithm for software test optimization. Results are shown and compared with some existing metaheuristic approaches.


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