Generating Controllably Invalid and Atypical Inputs for Robustness Testing

• One form of robustness in a software system is its ability to handle, in an appropriate manner, inputs that are unexpected compared to those it would experience in normal operation. In this paper we investigate a generic approach to generating such unexpected test inputs by extending a framework that we have previously developed for the automated creation of complex and high-structured test data. The approach is applied to the generation of valid inputs that are atypical as well as inputs that are invalid. We demonstrate that our approach enables control of the 'degree' to which the test data is invalid or atypical, and show empirically that this can alter the extent to which the robustness of a software system is exercised during testing. © 2017 IEEE.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Programvaruteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Software Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Automatic test pattern generation

Computer software

Verification

Generic approach

Normal operations

Robustness testing

Software systems

Structured tests

Test data

Test inputs

Software testing

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)