Improving path selection by handling loops in automatic test data generation

Generating path oriented test data is one of the most powerful methods in generating appropriate test data which selects all complete paths in Control Flow Graph (CFG) and generates appropriate data to traverse the selected paths. In path selecting phase, different paths could be selected according to loops iteration that most of them are infeasible. Because the number of loops iteration is detected dynamically through the program execution in most cases. In earlier techniques, researchers either refused to handle loops or dealt with them by simplifying; thus, no effective solutions have been represented up to now. In paths with loops, proposed algorithm firstly attempts to determine the exact number of loops iteration. Then if the iterations remain unknown, this number will be decided by the tester. This technique is executed based on symbolic evaluation and loop information. Finally, selected paths can all be traversed; moreover, with reducing the number of infeasible paths, the time of generating test data will be reduced remarkably.