Automated Testing with Targeted Event Sequence Generation

TY - GEN

T1 - Automated Testing with Targeted Event Sequence Generation

AU - Jensen, Casper Svenning

AU - Prasad, Mukul R.

AU - Møller, Anders

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Automated software testing aims to detect errors by producing test inputs that cover as much of the application source code as possible. Applications for mobile devices are typically event-driven, which raises the challenge of automatically producing event sequences that result in high coverage. Some existing approaches use random or model-based testing that largely treats the application as a black box. Other approaches use symbolic execution, either starting from the entry points of the applications or on specific event sequences. A common limitation of the existing approaches is that they often fail to reach the parts of the application code that require more complex event sequences.We propose a two-phase technique for automatically finding event sequences that reach a given target line in the application code. The first phase performs concolic execution to build summaries of the individual event handlers of the application. The second phase builds event sequences backward from the target, using the summaries together with a UI model of the application. Our experiments on a collection of open source Android applications show that this technique can successfully produce event sequences that reach challenging targets.

AB - Automated software testing aims to detect errors by producing test inputs that cover as much of the application source code as possible. Applications for mobile devices are typically event-driven, which raises the challenge of automatically producing event sequences that result in high coverage. Some existing approaches use random or model-based testing that largely treats the application as a black box. Other approaches use symbolic execution, either starting from the entry points of the applications or on specific event sequences. A common limitation of the existing approaches is that they often fail to reach the parts of the application code that require more complex event sequences.We propose a two-phase technique for automatically finding event sequences that reach a given target line in the application code. The first phase performs concolic execution to build summaries of the individual event handlers of the application. The second phase builds event sequences backward from the target, using the summaries together with a UI model of the application. Our experiments on a collection of open source Android applications show that this technique can successfully produce event sequences that reach challenging targets.

U2 - 10.1145/2483760.2483777

DO - 10.1145/2483760.2483777

M3 - Article in proceedings

SN - 978-1-4503-2159-4

SP - 67

EP - 77

BT - International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), 2013

A2 - Pezzè, Mauro

A2 - Harman, Mark

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

T2 - International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

Y2 - 16 July 2013 through 18 July 2013

ER -