A Dataflow Testing Approach for Aspect-Oriented Programs

Dataflow testing of programs ensures the execution of data dependencies between locations in the code (1) where variables are assigned values, and (2) where these definitions are used. Such data dependencies are called Def-Use Associations (DUAs). In an aspect-oriented (AO) program, aspects and classes interact in several ways, such as (1) through parameters passed from advised methods in a class to advices in the aspect, or (2) by the reading or writing of class state variables in an advice. In this paper, we present a dataflow testing approach for AO programs that is based on class state variables. We identify various types of DUAs for such variables and propose a set of dataflow test criteria that require executing these DUAs. Our approach is implemented by a tool called DCT-AJ, which identifies the DUAs in an AspectJ program and computes the coverage obtained from a test suite. Preliminary results indicate that the test suites satisfying the proposed dataflow criteria are more effective in detecting faults than the test suites that satisfy block coverage criteria.