An analysis of test data selection criteria using the RELAY model of fault detection

RELAY is a model of faults and failures that defines failure conditions, which describe test data for which execution will guarantee that a fault originates erroneous behavior that also transfers through computations and information flow until a failure is revealed. This model of fault detection provides a framework within which other testing criteria's capabilities can be evaluated. In this paper, we analyze three test data selection criteria that attempt to detect faults in six fault classes. This analysis shows that none of these criteria is capable of guaranteeing detection for these fault classes and points out two major weaknesses of these criteria. The first weakness is that the criteria do not consider the potential unsatisfiability of their rules; each criterion includes rules that are sufficient to cause potential failures for some fault classes, yet when such rules are unsatisfiable, many faults may remain undetected. Their second weakness is failure to integrate their proposed rules; although a criterion may cause a subexpression to take on an erroneous value, there is no effort made to guarantee that the intermediate values cause observable, erroneous behavior. This paper shows how the RELAY model overcomes these weaknesses

A supportive environment for the management of software testing

This dissertation describes research undertaken on the management of software testing. A support environment for the management of software testing, entitled SEMST, is presented. The research approach involves the investigation of software configuration management and its application to the testing process; the study of software testing techniques and methods; the exploration of the significance of software testing management; a survey of related work; the development and analysis of the requirements for SEMST; its implementation and an assessment. The current version of SEMST is a prototype built on the top of Unix and RCS on a Sun workstation. It is able to maintain all versions of specifications, test cases and programs, as well as to manage the relationships between these components

Analysis of Perturbation-based Testing Methodology as applied to a Real-Time Control System Problem

Perturbation analysis is a software analysis technique used to study the tail function of a program by inserting an error into an executing program using data state mutation. The impact of this induced error on the output is then measured. This methodology can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of a given test set and in fact can be used as a means to derive a test set which provides coverage for a given program. Previous research has shown that there is a coupling effect such that test sets that identify simple errors will also identify more complex errors. Thus the research would indicate that this methodology would facilitate the generation of test sets that would detect a wide range of possible faults. This research applies a perturbation analysis technique to the Cell Pre-selection algorithm as used in the Tomahawk Weapons Control System