ITTDG: Integrated T-way test data generation strategy for interaction testing

Abstract

In the last 20 years, software has grown tremendously in terms of size (that is, line of codes (LOCs), and functionalities). With the increase in LOCs and functionalities, more and more unwanted interactions amongst software systems, hardware components, and operating systems are to be expected, rendering increased possibility of faults. While traditional static and dynamic testing strategies are useful for fault detection and prevention, they may not be sufficient to tackle bugs due to interaction. This paper describes the development of an integrated t-way test data generation (ITTDG) strategy for interaction testing (where t indicates the interaction strength). Unlike most existing works, ITTDG seamlessly integrates all forms of interaction possibilities including uniform, variable strength, and input output based relationship. Empirical evidence demonstrates that, ITTDG produces competitive test size as compared to existing strategies on a number of benchmark configurations.   Key words: Interaction testing, t-way test data generation, uniform strength, variable strength, input-output relationship.