A "Vibration" Method for Automatically Generating Test Cases Based on Formal Specifications

Several approaches to test case generation based on formal specifications have been put forward, but how to automatically generate test cases to ensure that all of the representative program paths of the corresponding program are traversed still remains an open problem. In this paper, we describe a new technique called "Vibration" method to tackle this problem. The method focuses on a heuristic process of generating test cases, collecting traversed paths, and removing the bugs detected, based on a single test condition of a functional scenario until all the corresponding program paths are traversed or a stopping testing condition is met. The test case generation is fully automatic, in the sense that all the criteria can be implemented by algorithms in a software tool. We describe the criteria and algorithms for test case generation and for stopping a testing process.