Towards Automatically Generating Test Paths for Web Application Testing

To ensure the requested quality of Web applications as expected, it is critical and challenging to test them. This work defines Web application schema and constructs Web application relation graph in order to model Web applications. An approach to generating test paths is presented by establishing path-generating graph which is derived from the Web application relation graph and used to produce path expressions. The test paths can be easily employed to construct test cases if user input values are provided. For illustration, a case study of the SWLS (Simple Web Login System) is exemplified. Moreover, a path generation strategy is suggested in accordance with the "divide and conquer" principle when the Web application under test is complicated. The strategy makes the Web application less complex and more controllable. This also restricts the state space explosion in a sense. The test path generation approach presented is an important supplement to the existing Web application testing.