Automated Test Oracle Generation via Denotational Semantics

This paper presents a formal approach to specifying test oracles in denotational semantics, and bridges the automation between test case generation and software testing. We extended our grammar-based test generation tool, Gena, with an interface for users to define semantic domains, and formal semantic evaluation functions for mapping from syntax to semantics, based on the methodology of denotational semantics. We provide two practical case studies to illustrate how automated oracle generation can be effectively integrated with grammar-based test generation in different testing scenarios: generating test data for a set of java programs, and generating executable Smalltalk testing methods.