More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

article

Free access

The ASTOOT approach to testing object-oriented programs

Editor: W. Richards Adrion Authors:

Roong-Ko Doong,

Phyllis G. FranklAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Volume 3, Issue 2

Pages 101 - 130

https://doi.org/10.1145/192218.192221

Published: 01 April 1994 Publication History

Abstract

This article describes a new approach to the unit testing of object-oriented programs, a set of tools based on this approach, and two case studies. In this approach, each test case consists of a tuple of sequences of messages, along with tags indicating whether these sequences should put objects of the class under test into equivalent states and/or return objects that are in equivalent states. Tests are executed by sending the sequences to objects of the class under test, then invoking a user-supplied equivalence-checking mechanism. This approach allows for substantial automation of many aspects of testing, including test case generation, test driver generation, test execution, and test checking. Experimental prototypes of tools for test generation and test execution are described. The test generation tool requires the availability of an algebraic specification of the abstract data type being tested, but the test execution tool can be used when no formal specification is available. Using the test execution tools, case studies involving execution of tens of thousands of test cases, with various sequence lengths, parameters, and combinations of operations were performed. The relationships among likelihood of detecting an error and sequence length, range of parameters, and relative frequency of various operations were investigated for priority queue and sorted-list implementations having subtle errors. In each case, long sequences tended to be more likely to detect the error, provided that the range of parameters was sufficiently large and likelihood of detecting an error tended to increase up to a threshold value as the parameter range increased.

References

[1]

~ANTOY, S. 1989. Systematic design of algebraic specifications. In Proceedings of the 5th ~Internatmnal Workshop on Software Specification and Design. ACM, New York, 278-280.

[2]

~ANTOY, S. AND HAMLET, D. 1992. Automatically checking an implementation against its formal ~specification. Tech. Rep. TR 91-1, Rev. 1, Portland State Univ., Portland, Ore.

[3]

~BARTUSSEK, W. AND PARNAS, n. L. 1986. Using assertions about traces to write abstract ~specifications for software modules. In Software Specification Techniques. Addison-Wesley, ~Reading, Mass., 111-130.

[4]

~BERNOT, G., GAUDEL, M. C., AND MARRE, B. 1991. Software testing based on formal specifica- ~tions: A theory and a tool. Softw. Eng. J. 6, 6 (Nov.), 387-405.

[5]

~CHOQUET, N. 1986. Test data generation using a prolog with constraints. In Proceedmgs ofthe ~Workshop on Software Testing. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, D.C., 132-141.

[6]

~DOONG, R.-K. 1993. An approach to testing object-oriented programs. Ph.D. thesis, Polytechnic ~Univ., Brooklyn, N.Y. Also appeared as Computer Science Dept. Tech. Rep. No. PUCS-110-92.

[7]

~DOONG, R.-K. AND FRANKL, P.G. 1991. Case studies on testing object-oriented progTams. In ~Proceedings of the Symposium on Testing, Analysis, and Verification ( TA V4 ). ACM, New York, ~165-177.

[8]

~GANNON, J. D., HAMLET, R. G., AND MILLS, H.D. 1987. Theory of modules. IEEE Trans. Softw. ~Eng. 13, 7 (July), 820 829.

[9]

~GANNON, J. D., MCMULHN, P. R., AND HAMLET, R. 1981. Data-abstraction implementation, ~specification, and testing. ACM Trans. Program. Lang. Syst. 3, 3 (July), 211-223.

[10]

~GAUDEL, M. AND MARRE, B. 1988. Generation of test data from algebraic specifications. In ~Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Software Testing, Verification, and Analysis. IEEE ~Computer Society, Washington, D.C., 138-139.

[11]

~GOGUEN, J. A. AND WIN}~LER, T. 1988. Introducing OBJ3. Tech. Rep. SRI-CSL-88-9, Computer ~Science Lab., SRI Int., Menlo Park, Calif.

[12]

~GOGUEN, J. A., THATCHER, J. W., AND WAGNER, E.G. 1978. An initial algebra approach to the ~specification, correctness, and implementation of abstract data types. Current Trends Program. ~Meth. 4, 80-149.

[13]

~GOLDBERG, A. AND ROBSON, D. 1983. Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation. ~Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass.

[14]

~GUTTAG, J.J. 1980. Notes on type abstraction (version 2). IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 6, 1 (Jan.), ~13 23.

[15]

~GUTTAG, J.J. 1977. Abstract data types and the development of data structures. Commun. ~ACM 20, 6 (June), 396-404.

[16]

~GUTTAG, J. J. AND HORNING, J.J. 1978. The algebraic specification of abstract data types. Acta ~Inf. 10, 1, 27 52.

[17]

~GUTTA% J. J., HOROWITZ, E., AND MUSSER, D.R. 1978. Abstract data types and software ~validation. Commun. ACM 21, 12 (Dec.), 1048 1064.

[18]

~GUTTAG, J. J., HOROWITZ, E., AND MUSSER, D.R. 1977. Some extensions to algebraic specifica- ~tions. In Proceedings of Language Design for Reliable Software. ACM, New York, 63-67.

[19]

~HOFFMAN, D. AND BREALEY, C. 1989. Module test case generation. In Proceedings of ACM ~SIGSOFT '89 3rd Symposium on Software Testing, Analysis and Verification. ACM Press, ~New York, 97 102.

[20]

~HOFFMAN, n. AND SNODGRASS, a. 1988. Trace specifications: Methodology and models. IEEE ~Trans. Softw. Eng. 14, 9 (Sept.), 1243-1252.

[21]

HOFFMAN, D. M. AND STROOPER, P. 1991. Automated module testing in Prolog. IEEE Trans. ~Softw. Eng. 17, 9 (Sept.), 934-943.

[22]

~JALOTE, P. 1989. Testing the completeness of specifications. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 15, 5 ~(May), 526 531.

[23]

~JALOTE, P. AND CABALLERO, M.G. 1988. Automated testcase generation for data abstraction. In ~Proceedings of COMPSAC 88. IEEE Computer Society, Waghington, D C., 205-210.

[24]

~KNUTH, D. E. AND BENDIX, P. B. 1970. Simple word problems in universal algebras. In ~Computational Problems in Abstract Algebra. Pergamon Press, Elmsford, N.Y., 263-297.

[25]

~LISKOV, B. H. AND Z~LLES, S.N. 1975. Specification techniques for data abstractions. IEEE ~Trans. Softw. Eng. 1, i (Mar.), 7-19.

[26]

MCLEAN, J.M. 1984. A formal method for the abstract specification of software. J. ACM 31, 3 ~(July), 600 627.

[27]

MEYER, B. 1988. Object-Orzented Software Constructzon. Prentice-Hall International, New ~York.

[28]

~MUSSER, D.R. 1980. Abstract data type specification in the AFFIRM system. IEEE Trans. ~Softw. Eng. 6, 1 (Jan.), 24-32.

[29]

~STROUSTRUP, B. 1991. The C++ Programmzng Language. 2nd ed. Addison-Wesley~ Reading, ~Mass

[30]

~WEYUKER, E.J. 1982. On testing non-testable programs. Comput. J. 25, 4, 465 470.

Cited By

Kesserwan NAl-Jaroodi JMohamed NJawhar I(2022)Automatic Detection of Interaction Errors2022 IEEE/ACIS 20th International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA)10.1109/SERA54885.2022.9806754(47-53)Online publication date: 25-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SERA54885.2022.9806754
Lascu ADonaldson AGrosser THoefler T(2022)Metamorphic Fuzzing of C++ Libraries2022 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00015(35-46)Online publication date: Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00015
Zhu HBayley I(2022)Discovering boundary values of feature-based machine learning classifiers through exploratory datamorphic testingJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2022.111231187:COnline publication date: 1-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111231
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

An approach to testing object-oriented programs
Object State Testing for Object-Oriented Programs
COMPSAC '95: Proceedings of the 19th International Computer Software and Applications Conference

Abstract: Since class objects are the major components in object oriented (OO) programs during run time, testing the behavior of these objects become an important task in testing of object oriented programs to complement other types of testing, such as, ...
System testing for object-oriented systems with test case prioritization

This paper presents an approach to generate test cases from UML 2.0 sequence diagrams and subsequently prioritize those test cases using model information encapsulated in the sequence diagrams. The test cases generated according to the proposed approach ...

Reviews

Reviewer: David A. Gustafson

ASTOOT is a software testing tool that automates many parts of the testing process for object-oriented software. This excellent paper presents a new twist in software testing. It is well worth the effort of reading and understanding it. Researchers in software testing will find several interesting ideas, including generating test cases from an algebraic specification and self-checking tests. The description of the tool is also valuable. The basis for the methodology is a specification for an abstract data type (ADT) that indicates equivalency between different sequences of operations. For example, in many stack ADTs, the sequence of push followed by pop is equivalent to a null operation. Using these equivalencies, one sequence of operations can be converted to an equivalent sequence. The self-checking test case consists of running both sequences and checking that the results (output and resulting object) are equivalent. The objects are shown to be equivalent by recursively removing items. The unfortunate part is that the ASTOOT approach gives no guidance to the general problem of testing object-oriented software. The title of the paper is accurate. It describes the ASTOOT approach. When I first saw the title, I was hoping for information that I could use for testing object-oriented software, but the test cases are not selected on any coverage or criterion basis. In fact, ASTOOT does not select test cases; it only allows the tester to run test cases more efficiently and thus to run more test cases. The contribution of ASTOOT is in making testing easier.

Access critical reviews of Computing literature here

Become a reviewer for Computing Reviews.

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology Volume 3, Issue 2

April 1994

99 pages

ISSN:1049-331X

EISSN:1557-7392

DOI:10.1145/192218

Editor:
W. Richards Adrion
Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1994 ACM.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 April 1994

Published in TOSEM Volume 3, Issue 2

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

251
Total Citations
View Citations
2,101
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)102
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)14

Reflects downloads up to 18 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Kesserwan NAl-Jaroodi JMohamed NJawhar I(2022)Automatic Detection of Interaction Errors2022 IEEE/ACIS 20th International Conference on Software Engineering Research, Management and Applications (SERA)10.1109/SERA54885.2022.9806754(47-53)Online publication date: 25-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/SERA54885.2022.9806754
Lascu ADonaldson AGrosser THoefler T(2022)Metamorphic Fuzzing of C++ Libraries2022 IEEE Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST)10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00015(35-46)Online publication date: Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICST53961.2022.00015
Zhu HBayley I(2022)Discovering boundary values of feature-based machine learning classifiers through exploratory datamorphic testingJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2022.111231187:COnline publication date: 1-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.jss.2022.111231
Ma CLiu SFu JZhang T(2021)Test Oracle Generation Based on BPNN by Using the Values of Variables at Different Breakpoints for ProgramsInternational Journal of Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering10.1142/S021819402150049231:10(1469-1494)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218194021500492
Yin YRuan JLi YLi YPan Z(2021)Syntax‐based metamorphic relation prediction via the bagging frameworkExpert Systems10.1111/exsy.1290239:6Online publication date: 15-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1111/exsy.12902
Blasi AGorla AErnst MPezzè MCarzaniga A(2021)MeMo: Automatically identifying metamorphic relations in Javadoc comments for test automationJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2021.111041(111041)Online publication date: Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2021.111041
Aalam ZKaur SVats PKaur ASaxena R(2021)A Comprehensive Analysis of Testing Efforts Using the Avisar Testing Tool for Object Oriented SoftwaresIntelligent Sustainable Systems10.1007/978-981-16-6369-7_34(385-394)Online publication date: 17-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6369-7_34
Vats PMandot M(2020)A Comprehensive Analysis for Validation of AVISAR Object-Oriented Testing ToolMachine Learning for Predictive Analysis10.1007/978-981-15-7106-0_60(613-624)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7106-0_60
He ZChen YHuang EWang QPei YYuan HAtlee JBultan TWhittle J(2019)A system identification based Oracle for control-CPS software fault localizationProceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE.2019.00029(116-127)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE.2019.00029
Jain NPorwal RKumar SVarshney SSaraswat M(2019)Automatic data flow class testing based on 2-step heterogeneous process using evolutionary algorithmsJournal of Statistics and Management Systems10.1080/09720510.2019.160956522:7(1315-1348)Online publication date: 24-Nov-2019
https://doi.org/10.1080/09720510.2019.1609565
Show More Cited By

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents