Title :
Efficient Mutation Killers in Action
Author :
Aichernig, Bernhard K. ; Brandl, Harald ; Jobstl, E. ; Krenn, Willibald
Author_Institution :
Inst. for Software Technol., Graz Univ. of Technol., Graz, Austria
Abstract :
This paper presents the techniques and results of a novel model-based test case generation approach that automatically derives test cases from UML state machines. Mutation testing is applied on the modeling level to generate test cases. We present the test case generation approach, discuss the tool chain, and present the properties of the generated test cases. The main contribution of this paper is an empirical study of a car alarm system where different strategies for killing mutants are compared. We present detailed figures on the effectiveness of the test case generation technique. Although UML serves as an input language, all techniques are grounded on solid foundations: we give UML state transition diagrams a formal semantics by mapping them to Back´s action systems.
Keywords :
Unified Modeling Language; program testing; programming language semantics; UML state machine; UML state transition diagram; action system; car alarm system; formal semantics; killing mutant; model-based test case generation; mutation killer; mutation testing; tool chain; Alarm systems; Automata; Object oriented modeling; Semantics; Suspensions; Testing; Unified modeling language; Unified Modeling Language; action systems; ioco; mutation testing; test case generation;
Conference_Titel :
Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST), 2011 IEEE Fourth International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Berlin
Print_ISBN :
978-1-61284-174-8
Electronic_ISBN :
978-0-7695-4342-0
DOI :
10.1109/ICST.2011.57