Test Case Optimization and Redundancy Reduction Using GA and Neural Networks

More than 50% of software development effort is spent in testing phase in a typical software development project. Test case design as well as execution consume a lot of time. Hence, automated generation of test cases is highly required. Here a novel testing methodology is being presented to test object-oriented software based on UML state chart diagrams. In this approach, function minimization technique is being applied and generate test cases automatically from UML state chart diagrams. Software testing forms an integral part of the software development life cycle. Since the objective of testing is to ensure the conformity of an application to its specification, a test “oracle” is needed to determine whether a given test case exposes a fault or not. An automated oracle to support the activities of human testers can reduce the actual cost of the testing process and the related maintenance costs. In this paper, a new concept is being presented using an UML state chart diagram and tables for the test case generation, artificial neural network as an optimization tool for reducing the redundancy in the test case generated using the genetic algorithm. A neural network is trained by the back-propagation algorithm on a set of test cases applied to the original version of the system

Model-Based Testing Approaches using UML Diagrams: A Systematic Literature Review

Software Unit Testing (SUT) is the starting point for Model-Based Testing (MBT), a testing method. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has become the standard for modelling software in professional and academic settings. There are various uses for the modelling language known as UML. The findings of an SLR on UML-based model-based testing methodologies are presented in this paper. Thirty-five primary articles about six research issues were examined using selection and exclusion criteria. Methods, model class, intermediate format use, and testing methodology are the primary points of examination. The review outcomes identify future research needs and avenues of inquiry

A test case generation framework based on UML statechart diagram

Early software fault detection offers more flexibility to correct errors in the early development stages. Unfortunately, existing studies in this domain are not sufficiently comprehensive in describing the major processes of the automated test case generation. Furthermore, the algorithms used for test case generation are not provided or well described. Current studies also hardly address loops and parallel paths issues, and achieved low coverage criteria. Therefore, this study proposes a test case generation framework that generates minimized and prioritized test cases from UML statechart diagram with higher coverage criteria. This study, conducted a review of the previous research to identify the issues and gaps related to test case generation, model-based testing, and coverage criteria. The proposed framework was designed from the gathered information based on the reviews and consists of eight components that represent a comprehensive test case generation processes. They are relation table, relation graph, consistency checking, test path minimization, test path prioritization, path pruning, test path generation, and test case generation. In addition, a prototype to implement the framework was developed. The evaluation of the framework was conducted in three phases: prototyping, comparison with previous studies, and expert review. The results reveal that the most suitable coverage criteria for UML statechart diagram are all-states coverage, all-transitions coverage, alltransition-pairs coverage, and all-loop-free-paths coverage. Furthermore, this study achieves higher coverage criteria in all coverage criteria, except for all-state coverage, when compared with the previous studies. The results of the experts’ review show that the framework is practical, easy to implement due to it is suitability to generate the test cases. The proposed algorithms provide correct results, and the prototype is able to generate test case effectively. Generally, the proposed system is well accepted by experts owing to its usefulness, usability, and accuracy. This study contributes to both theory and practice by providing an early alternative test case generation framework that achieves high coverage and can effectively generate test cases from UML statechart diagrams. This research adds new knowledge to the software testing field, especially for testing processes in the model-based techniques, testing activity, and testing tool support

Automated Test Case Generation Model from UML Diagrams based on Monotonic Genetic Algorithm

The procedure of developing package includes software testing as an imperative phase. The three components of the testing process are test execution, test evaluation and test case generation. The creation of test cases remains at the heart of challenging automation. It decreases the amount of mistakes and flaws while saving time and effort. A new way to automate the testing process has been developed to reduce the high tot test evaluation al of software testing and to improve the dependability of the testing procedures. In this paper, a innovative technique for creating and refining test cases using UML Activity Chart diagrams is proposed. The Genetic Algorithm's crossover method was used to create the new test sequence, and the test sequences' effectiveness was assessed by Mutation Analysis. As a result, they are unable to effectively combat multilayer perceptrons when faced with incorrect properties. Monotonic genetic algorithm is a Concept that is easy to understand and Supports multi-objective. The radial basis function (RBF) neural network algorithm currently in use has challenges counting the amount of neurons in the hidden layer and has poor weight learning ability from the hidden layer to the output layer. RBF networks have the drawback of giving respectively attribute a comparable weight since all factors are taken into account equally while calculating distance unless the attribute weight parameters are included in the entire optimization procedure

Model based test suite minimization using metaheuristics

Software testing is one of the most widely used methods for quality assurance and fault detection purposes. However, it is one of the most expensive, tedious and time consuming activities in software development life cycle. Code-based and specification-based testing has been going on for almost four decades. Model-based testing (MBT) is a relatively new approach to software testing where the software models as opposed to other artifacts (i.e. source code) are used as primary source of test cases. Models are simplified representation of a software system and are cheaper to execute than the original or deployed system. The main objective of the research presented in this thesis is the development of a framework for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of test suites generated from UML models. It focuses on three activities: transformation of Activity Diagram (AD) model into Colored Petri Net (CPN) model, generation and evaluation of AD based test suite and optimization of AD based test suite. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a de facto standard for software system analysis and design. UML models can be categorized into structural and behavioral models. AD is a behavioral type of UML model and since major revision in UML version 2.x it has a new Petri Nets like semantics. It has wide application scope including embedded, workflow and web-service systems. For this reason this thesis concentrates on AD models. Informal semantics of UML generally and AD specially is a major challenge in the development of UML based verification and validation tools. One solution to this challenge is transforming a UML model into an executable formal model. In the thesis, a three step transformation methodology is proposed for resolving ambiguities in an AD model and then transforming it into a CPN representation which is a well known formal language with extensive tool support. Test case generation is one of the most critical and labor intensive activities in testing processes. The flow oriented semantic of AD suits modeling both sequential and concurrent systems. The thesis presented a novel technique to generate test cases from AD using a stochastic algorithm. In order to determine if the generated test suite is adequate, two test suite adequacy analysis techniques based on structural coverage and mutation have been proposed. In terms of structural coverage, two separate coverage criteria are also proposed to evaluate the adequacy of the test suite from both perspectives, sequential and concurrent. Mutation analysis is a fault-based technique to determine if the test suite is adequate for detecting particular types of faults. Four categories of mutation operators are defined to seed specific faults into the mutant model. Another focus of thesis is to improve the test suite efficiency without compromising its effectiveness. One way of achieving this is identifying and removing the redundant test cases. It has been shown that the test suite minimization by removing redundant test cases is a combinatorial optimization problem. An evolutionary computation based test suite minimization technique is developed to address the test suite minimization problem and its performance is empirically compared with other well known heuristic algorithms. Additionally, statistical analysis is performed to characterize the fitness landscape of test suite minimization problems. The proposed test suite minimization solution is extended to include multi-objective minimization. As the redundancy is contextual, different criteria and their combination can significantly change the solution test suite. Therefore, the last part of the thesis describes an investigation into multi-objective test suite minimization and optimization algorithms. The proposed framework is demonstrated and evaluated using prototype tools and case study models. Empirical results have shown that the techniques developed within the framework are effective in model based test suite generation and optimizatio

Target-based test path prioritization for UML activity diagram using weight assignment methods

The benefit of exploratory testing and ad hoc testing by tester’s experience is that crucial bugs are found quickly. Regression testing and test case prioritization are important processes of software testing when software functions have been changed. We propose a test path prioritization method to generate a sequence of test paths that would match the testers’ interests and focuses on the target area of interest or on the changed area. We generate test paths form the activity diagrams and survey the test path prioritization from testers. We define node and edge weight to the symbols of activity diagrams by applying Time management, Pareto, Buffett, Binary, and Bipolar method. Then we propose a test path score equation to prioritize test paths. We also propose evaluation methods i.e., the difference and the similarity of test path prioritization to testers’ interests. Our proposed method had the least average of the difference and the most average of the similarity compare with the tester’s prioritization of test paths. The Bipolar method was the most suitable for assigning weights to match test path rank by the tester. Our proposed method also has given the affected path by changing area higher priority than the other test path

An automatic test data generation from UML state diagram using genetic algorithm.

Software testing is a part of software development process. However, this part is the first one to miss by software developers if there is a limited time to complete the project. Software developers often finish their software construction closed to the delivery time, they usually don¿t have enough time to create effective test cases for testing their programs. Creating test cases manually is a huge work for software developers in the rush hours. A tool which automatically generates test cases and test data can help the software developers to create test cases from software designs/models in early stage of the software development (before coding). Heuristic techniques can be applied for creating quality test data. In this paper, a GA-based test data generation technique has been proposed to generate test data from UML state diagram, so that test data can be generated before coding. The paper details the GA implementation to generate sequences of triggers for UML state diagram as test cases. The proposed algorithm has been demonstrated manually for an example of a vending machine

Search based software engineering: Trends, techniques and applications

© ACM, 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version is available from the link below.In the past five years there has been a dramatic increase in work on Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), an approach to Software Engineering (SE) in which Search-Based Optimization (SBO) algorithms are used to address problems in SE. SBSE has been applied to problems throughout the SE lifecycle, from requirements and project planning to maintenance and reengineering. The approach is attractive because it offers a suite of adaptive automated and semiautomated solutions in situations typified by large complex problem spaces with multiple competing and conflicting objectives. This article provides a review and classification of literature on SBSE. The work identifies research trends and relationships between the techniques applied and the applications to which they have been applied and highlights gaps in the literature and avenues for further research.EPSRC and E

An evaluation on the comprehensibility of UML activity and state chart diagrams with regard to manual test generation

The activity and state chart diagrams are the most frequently used UML diagrams for testing a system based on its specification. One of the key important qualities of the UML diagrams is their comprehensibility. The content analysis of previous studies highlighted the lack of experts’ evaluation of the comprehensibility of activity and state chart diagrams with regard to test case generation. Thus, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the comprehensibility of the UML activity and state chart diagrams for test case generation. First, a content analysis was performed to identify the comprehensibility criteria. The criteria are perceived difficulty and subjective confidence. Next, a set of evaluation questions was designed based on the content analysis. Then, test cases were generated from activity and state chart diagrams manually of an adapted case study. An interview was conducted with five experts to validate the evaluation questions. The experts evaluated the comprehensibility of the activity and state chart diagrams by using the evaluation questions. The result of the study provided specific details of the different characteristics of activity and state chart diagrams. Further, it suggested that the activity diagram is more comprehensible than the state chart diagram in the aspect of test case generation. The finding of this study could assist software testers in choosing the appropriate UML diagrams for software testing