On testing concurrent systems through contexts of queues

Concurrent systems, including asynchronous circuits, computer networks, and multi-threaded programs, have important applications, but they are also very complex and expensive to test. This thesis studies how to test concurrent systems through contexts consisting of queues. Queues, modeling buffers and communication delays, are an integral part of the test settings for concurrent systems. However, queues can also distort the behavior of the concurrent system as observed by the tester, so one should take into account the queues when defining conformance relations or deriving tests. On the other hand, queues can cause state explosion, so one should avoid testing them if they are reliable or have already been tested. To solve these problems, we propose two different solutions. The first solution is to derive tests using some test selection criteria such as test purposes, fault coverage, and transition coverage. The second solution is to compensate for the problems caused by the queues so that testers do not discern the presence of the queues in the first place. Unifying the presentation of the two solutions, we consider in a general testing framework partial specifications, various contexts, and a hierarchy of conformance relations. Case studies on test derivation for asynchronous circuits, communication protocols, and multi-threaded programs are presented to demonstrate the applications of the results

Using formal methods to support testing

Formal methods and testing are two important approaches that assist in the development of high quality software. While traditionally these approaches have been seen as rivals, in recent years a new consensus has developed in which they are seen as complementary. This article reviews the state of the art regarding ways in which the presence of a formal specification can be used to assist testing

Higher Order Mutation Testing

Mutation testing is a fault-based software testing technique that has been studied widely for over three decades. To date, work in this field has focused largely on first order mutants because it is believed that higher order mutation testing is too computationally expensive to be practical. This thesis argues that some higher order mutants are potentially better able to simulate real world faults and to reveal insights into programming bugs than the restricted class of first order mutants. This thesis proposes a higher order mutation testing paradigm which combines valuable higher order mutants and non-trivial first order mutants together for mutation testing. To overcome the exponential increase in the number of higher order mutants a search process that seeks fit mutants (both first and higher order) from the space of all possible mutants is proposed. A fault-based higher order mutant classification scheme is introduced. Based on different types of fault interactions, this approach classifies higher order mutants into four categories: expected, worsening, fault masking and fault shifting. A search-based approach is then proposed for locating subsuming and strongly subsuming higher order mutants. These mutants are a subset of fault mask and fault shift classes of higher order mutants that are more difficult to kill than their constituent first order mutants. Finally, a hybrid test data generation approach is introduced, which combines the dynamic symbolic execution and search based software testing approaches to generate strongly adequate test data to kill first and higher order mutants

Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2011, nr 3

kwartalni

Programming Languages and Systems

This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 30th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2021, which was held during March 27 until April 1, 2021, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2021. The conference was planned to take place in Luxembourg and changed to an online format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 24 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 79 submissions. They deal with fundamental issues in the specification, design, analysis, and implementation of programming languages and systems

LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume

LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum