Browsing by Author "Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro"
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- Adaptive Evolutionary Testing: An Adaptive Approach to Search-Based Test Case Generation for Object-Oriented SoftwarePublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Zenha-Rela, Mário Alberto; de Vega, Francisco FernándezAdaptive Evolutionary Algorithms are distinguished by their dynamic manipulation of selected parameters during the course of evolving a problem solution; they have an advantage over their static counterparts in that they are more reactive to the unanticipated particulars of the problem. This paper proposes an adaptive strategy for enhancing Genetic Programming-based approaches to automatic test case generation. The main contribution of this study is that of proposing an Adaptive Evolutionary Testing methodology for promoting the introduction of relevant instructions into the generated test cases by means of mutation; the instructions from which the algorithm can choose are ranked, with their rankings being updated every generation in accordance to the feedback obtained from the individuals evaluated in the preceding generation. The experimental studies developed show that the adaptive strategy proposed improves the test case generation algorithm's efficiency considerably, while introducing a negligible computational overhead.
- An evolutionary approach for performing structural unit-testing on third-party object-oriented Java softwarePublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Zenha-Rela, Mário Alberto; Fernandéz de Vega, FranciscoEvolutionary Testing is an emerging methodology for automatically generating high quality test data. The focus of this paper is on presenting an approach for generating test cases for the unit-testing of object-oriented programs, with basis on the information provided by the structural analysis and interpretation of Java bytecode and on the dynamic execution of the instrumented test object. The rationale for working at the bytecode level is that even when the source code is unavailable, insight can still be obtained and used to guide the search-based test case generation process. Test cases are represented using the Strongly Typed Genetic Programming paradigm, which effectively mimics the polymorphic relationships, inheritance dependences and method argument constraints of object-oriented programs.
- eCrash: a framework for performing evolutionary testing on third-party Java componentsPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Zenha-Rela, Mário Alberto; Fernandéz de Vega, FranciscoThe focus of this paper is on presenting a tool for generating test data by employing evolutionary search techniques, with basis on the information provided by the structural analysis and interpretation of the Java bytecode of third-party Java components, and on the dynamic execution of the instrumented test object. The main objective of this approach is that of evolving a set of test cases that yields full structural code coverage of the test object. Such a test set can be used for effectively performing the testing activity, providing confidence in the quality and robustness of the test object. The rationale of working at the bytecode level is that even when the source code is unavailable structural testing requirements can still be derived, and used to assess the quality of a test set and to guide the evolutionary search towards reaching specific test goals.
- eCrash: a Genetic Programming-Based Testing Tool for Object-Oriented SoftwarePublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Nogueira, Ana Filipa; Vega, Francisco Fernández de; Zenha-Rela, Mário AlbertoThis paper describes the methodology, architecture and features of the eCrash framework, a Java-based tool which employs Strongly-Typed Genetic Programming to automate the generation of test data for the structural unit testing of Object-Oriented programs. The application of Evolutionary Algorithms to Test Data generation is often referred to as Evolutionary Testing. eCrash implements an Evolutionary Testing strategy developed with three major purposes: improving the level of performance and automation of the Software Testing process; minimising the interference of the tool’s users on the Test Object analysis to a minimum; and mitigating the impact of users decisions in the Test Data generation process.
- Enabling Object Reuse on Genetic Programming-Based Approaches to Object-Oriented Evolutionary TestingPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Zenha-Rela, Mário Alberto; Vega, Francisco Fernández deRecent research on search-based test data generation for Object-Oriented software has relied heavily on typed Genetic Programming for representing and evolving test data. However, standard typed Genetic Programming approaches do not allow Object Reuse; this paper proposes a novel methodology to overcome this limitation. Object Reuse means that one instance can be passed to multiple methods as an argument, or multiple times to the same method as arguments. In the context of Object-Oriented Evolutionary Testing, it enables the generation of test programs that exercise structures of the software under test that would not be reachable otherwise. Additionally, the experimental studies performed show that the proposed methodology is able to effectively increase the performance of the test data generation process.
- Error propagation monitoring on Windows mobile-based devicesPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Luís, Bruno Miguel; Zenha-Rela, Mário AlbertoMobile devices, such as Smartphones, are being used virtually by every modern individual. Such devices are expected to work continuously and flawlessly for years, despite having been designed without criticality requirements. However, the requirements of mobility, digital identification and authentication lead to an increasing dependence of societies on the correct behaviour of these ’proxies for the individual’. The Windows Mobile 5.0 release has delivered a new set of internal state monitoring services, centralized into the State and Notifications Broker. This API was designed to be used by context-aware applications, providing a comprehensive monitoring of the internal state and resources of mobile devices. In this paper we propose using this service to increase the dependability of mobile applications by showing, through a series of fault-injection campaigns, that this novel API is very effective for error propagation profiling and monitoring.
- Evolutionary unit-testing of third party object-oriented Java softwarePublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos BregieiroEvolutionary Testing is an emerging methodology for automatically generating high quality test data. The focus of this work is on presenting a searchbased approach for the the unit-testing of third-party object-oriented Java software. Test cases are represented and evolved using the Strongly Typed Genetic Programming paradigm, which effectively mimics the inheritance and polymorphic properties of object-oriented programs and enables the maintenance of call dependences when applying tree construction, mutation or crossover. Our strategy for evaluating the quality of test cases includes instrumenting the test object for basic block analysis and structural event dispatch, and executing the instrumented test object using the generated test cases as “inputs” – in order to collect trace information and derive coverage metrics. Static analysis, instrumentation and execution tracing is performed solely with basis on the high-level information extracted from the Java Bytecode of the test object. Given that the test object’s source code is often unavailable, working at the Bytecode level allows broadening the scope of applicability of our approach; it can be used, for instance, to perform structural testing on third-party Java components. Test objects are represented internally by weighted control-flow graphs; strategies are introduced for favouring test cases that exercise problematic structures and difficult control-flow paths, which involve dynamic weight reevaluation. The aim is that of efficiently guiding the search process towards achieving full structural coverage – which often involves promoting the definition of complex and intricate test cases that define elaborate state scenarios. The work performed so far allowed us to develop the prototype of a test case generation tool, called eCrash. Experiments have been carried and quality solutions have been found, proving the pertinence of our methodology and encouraging further studies.
- mCrash: a framework for the evaluation of mobile devices trustworthiness propertiesPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos Bregieiro; Zenha-Rela, Mário AlbertoA rationale and framework for the evaluation of mobile devices’ robustness and trustworthiness properties using a Windows Mobile 5.0 testbed is presented. The methodology followed includes employing software faultinjection techniques at the operating system’s interface level and customising tests to the behaviour of the software.
- mCrash: a framework for the evaluation of mobile devices' trustworthiness propertiesPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos BregieiroMobile devices, such as Smartphones, are being used virtually by every modern individual. Such devices are expected to work continuously and awlessly for years, despite having been designed without criticality requirements. However, the requirements of mobility, digital identi cation and authentication lead to an increasing dependence of societies on the correct behaviour of these \proxies for the individual". The Windows Mobile 5.0 release has delivered a new set of internal state monitoring services, centralized into the State and Noti cations Broker. This API was designed to be used by context-aware applications, providing a comprehensive monitoring of the internal state and resources of mobile devices. We propose using this service to increase the dependability of mobile applications by showing, through a series of fault-injection campaigns, that this novel API is very e ective for error propagation pro ling and monitoring.
- Search-based test case generation for object-oriented Java software using strongly-typed genetic programmingPublication . Ribeiro, José Carlos BregieiroIn evolutionary testing, meta-heuristic search techniques are used to generate high-quality test data. The focus of our on-going work is on employing evolutionary algorithms for the structural unit-testing of object-oriented Java programs. Test cases are evolved using the Strongly-Typed Genetic Programming technique. Test data quality evaluation includes instrumenting the test object, executing it with the generated test cases, and tracing the structures traversed in order to derive coverage metrics. The strategy for efficiently guiding the search process towards achieving full structural coverage involves favouring test cases that exercise problematic structures and control-flow paths. Static analysis and instrumentation is performed solely with basis on the information extracted from the test objects' Java Bytecode. Relevant contributions include the introduction of novel methodologies for automation, search guidance and input domain reduction, and the presentation of the eCrash automated test case generation tool.