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Finding a Boundary between Valid and Invalid Regions of the Input Space
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Faculty of Computing, Department of Software Engineering.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-1393-4123
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Faculty of Computing, Department of Software Engineering.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5179-4205
2018 (English)In: Proceedings - Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC, IEEE Computer Society , 2018, p. 169-178, article id 8719523Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

In the context of robustness testing, the boundary between the valid and invalid regions of the input space can be an interesting source of erroneous inputs. Knowing where a specific software under test (SUT) has a boundary is also essential for validation in relation to requirements. However, finding where a SUT actually implements the boundary is a non-trivial problem that has not gotten much attention. This paper proposes a method of finding the boundary between the valid and invalid regions of the input space, by developing pairs of test sets that describe that boundary in detail. The proposed method consists of two steps. First, test data generators, directed by a search algorithm to maximise distance to known, valid test cases, generate valid test cases that are closer to the boundary. Second, these valid test cases undergo mutations to try to push them over the boundary and into the invalid part of the input space. This results in a pair of test sets, one consisting of test cases on the valid side of the boundary and a matched set on the outer side, with only a small distance between the two sets. The method is evaluated on a number of examples from the standard library of a modern programming language. We propose a method of determining the boundary between valid and invalid regions of the input space, and apply it on a SUT that has a non-contiguous valid region of the input space. From the small distance between the developed pairs of test sets, and the fact that one test set contains valid test cases and the other invalid test cases, we conclude that the pair of test sets described the boundary between the valid and invalid regions of that input space. Differences of behaviour can be observed between different distances and different sets of mutation operators, but all show that the method is able to identify the boundary between the valid and invalid regions of the input space. This is an important step towards more automated robustness testing. © 2018 IEEE.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE Computer Society , 2018. p. 169-178, article id 8719523
Keywords [en]
search based software testing, software testing, Testing, Input space, Mutation operators, Non trivial problems, Robustness testing, Search Algorithms, Search-based software testing, Standard libraries, Test sets
National Category
Software Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-18159DOI: 10.1109/APSEC.2018.00031ISI: 000474770300018Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85066806423ISBN: 9781728119700 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-18159DiVA, id: diva2:1328123
Conference
25th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, APSEC 2018, Nara, Japan, 4 December 2018 through 7 December
Available from: 2019-06-20 Created: 2019-06-20 Last updated: 2023-06-30Bibliographically approved

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Marculescu, BogdanFeldt, Robert

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