A Constraint Solver for PHP Arrays

International audienceIn previous works, we have proposed Praspel, a framework for contract-based testing in PHP. Among others, it includes a specification language and a unit test generator which automatically generates test data from formal preconditions. The generator sometimes rejects data, when they do not satisfy parts of the preconditions. In many cases, generation with rejection is not efficient enough. Thus we investigate practical contexts where more efficient generation algorithms can be designed and we extend Praspel with their implementation. After strings, that we have already considered, the most frequent data type in PHP is arrays. They cover most of the needs for collections, because they can store key-value pairs of any kind, they do not have a specific length or depth, and they are efficiently implemented. In this paper, we report on a study to know what are the most popular constraints on PHP arrays. Then we formalize these constraints and we present an implementation in PHP of a constraint solver for these constraints. In this context, the constraint-based approach removes all the rejections

Praspel: Contract-Driven Testing for PHP using Realistic Domains

We present an integrated contract-based testing framework for PHP. It relies on a behavioral interface specification language called Praspel, for "PHP Realistic Annotation and Specification Language". Using Praspel developers can easily annotate their PHP scripts with formal contracts, namely class invariants, and method pre- and postconditions. These contracts describe assertions either by predicates or by assigning realistic domains to data. Realistic domains introduce types in PHP and describe complex structures frequently encountered in applications, such as email addresses or SQL queries. Realistic domains display two properties: predicability, which allows to check if a data belongs to a given realistic domain, and samplability, which allows to generate valid data. This paper introduces coverage criteria dedicated to contracts, designed to exhibit relevant behaviors of the annotated methods. Test data are then computed to satisfy these coverage criteria, by using dedicated data generators for complex realistic domains, such as arrays or strings. This framework has been implemented and disseminated within the PHP community, which gave us feedback on their usage of the tool and the relevance of this integrated process with respect to their practice of manual testing

Praspel: Contract-Driven Testing for PHP using Realistic Domains

We present an integrated contract-based testing framework for PHP. It relies on a behavioral interface specification language called Praspel, for "PHP Realistic Annotation and Specification Language". Using Praspel developers can easily annotate their PHP scripts with formal contracts, namely class invariants, and method pre- and postconditions. These contracts describe assertions either by predicates or by assigning realistic domains to data. Realistic domains introduce types in PHP and describe complex structures frequently encountered in applications, such as email addresses or SQL queries. Realistic domains display two properties: predicability, which allows to check if a data belongs to a given realistic domain, and samplability, which allows to generate valid data. This paper introduces coverage criteria dedicated to contracts, designed to exhibit relevant behaviors of the annotated methods. Test data are then computed to satisfy these coverage criteria, by using dedicated data generators for complex realistic domains, such as arrays or strings. This framework has been implemented and disseminated within the PHP community, which gave us feedback on their usage of the tool and the relevance of this integrated process with respect to their practice of manual testing

Génération automatique de tests unitaires avec Praspel, un langage de spécification pour PHP

The works presented in this memoir are about the validation of PHPprograms through a new specification language, along with its tools. These works follow three axes: specification language, automatic test data generation and automatic unit test generation. The first contribution is Praspel, a new specification language for PHP, based on the Design by Contract. Praspel specifies data with realistic domains, which are new structures allowing to validate and generate data. Based on a contract, we are able to perform Contract-based Testing, i.e.using contracts to automatically generate unit tests. The second contribution isabout test data generation. For booleans, integers and floating point numbers, auniform random generation is used. For arrays, a dedicated constraint solver has been implemented and used. For strings, a grammar description language along with an LL(⋆) compiler compiler and several algorithms for data generation are used. Finally, the object generation is supported. The third contribution defines contract coverage criteria. These latters provide test objectives. All these contributions are implemented and experimented into tools distributed to the PHP community.Les travaux présentés dans ce mémoire portent sur la validation de programmes PHP à travers un nouveau langage de spécification, accompagné de ses outils. Ces travaux s’articulent selon trois axes : langage de spécification, génération automatique de données de test et génération automatique de tests unitaires.La première contribution est Praspel, un nouveau langage de spécification pour PHP, basé sur la programmation par contrat. Praspel spécifie les données avec des domaines réalistes, qui sont des nouvelles structures permettant de valider etgénérer des données. À partir d’un contrat écrit en Praspel, nous pouvons faire du Contract-based Testing, c’est à dire exploiter les contrats pour générer automatiquement des tests unitaires. La deuxième contribution concerne la génération de données de test. Pour les booléens, les entiers et les réels, une génération aléatoire uniforme est employée. Pour les tableaux, un solveur de contraintes a été implémenté et utilisé. Pour les chaînes de caractères, un langage de description de grammaires avec un compilateur de compilateurs LL(⋆) et plusieurs algorithmes de génération de données sont employés. Enfin, la génération d’objets est traitée.La troisième contribution définit des critères de couverture sur les contrats.Ces derniers fournissent des objectifs de test. Toutes ces contributions ont été implémentées et expérimentées dans des outils distribués à la communauté PHP

Actes des Cinquièmes journées nationales du Groupement De Recherche CNRS du Génie de la Programmation et du Logiciel

National audienceCe document contient les actes des Cinquièmes journées nationales du Groupement De Recherche CNRS du Gé}nie de la Programmation et du Logiciel (GDR GPL) s'étant déroulées à Nancy du 3 au 5 avril 2013. Les contributions présentées dans ce document ont été sélectionnées par les différents groupes de travail du GDR. Il s'agit de résumés, de nouvelles versions, de posters et de démonstrations qui correspondent à des travaux qui ont déjà été validés par les comités de programmes d'autres conférences et revues et dont les droits appartiennent exclusivement à leurs auteurs