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Model-Based Mutation Testing of Reactive Systems

From Semantics to Automated Test-Case Generation

  • Chapter
Theories of Programming and Formal Methods

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8051))

Abstract

In this paper we give an overview of our work on combining model-based testing and mutation testing. Model-based testing is a black-box testing technique that avoids the labour of manually writing hundreds of test cases, but instead advocates the capturing of the expected behaviour in a model of the system-under-test. The test cases are automatically generated from this model. The technique is receiving growing interest in the embedded-systems domain, where models are the rule rather than the exception.

Mutation testing is a technique for assessing and improving a test suite. A number of faulty versions of a program-under-test are produced by injecting bugs into its source code. These faulty programs are called mutants. A tester analyses if his test suite can ”kill” all mutants. We say that a test kills a mutant if it is able to distinguish it from the original. The tester improves his test suite until all faulty mutants get killed.

In model-based mutation testing, we combine the central ideas of model-based testing and mutation testing: we inject bugs in a model and generate a test suite that will kill these bugs. In this paper, we discuss its scientific foundations and tools. The foundations include semantics and conformance relations; the supporting tools involve model checkers, constraint solvers and SMT solvers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Software Technology, Graz University of Technology, Austria

    Bernhard K. Aichernig

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  1. Bernhard K. Aichernig
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute for Software Technology, United Nations University, P.O. Box 3058, Macau, China

    Zhiming Liu

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of York, Deramore Lane, YO10 5GH, York, UK

    Jim Woodcock

  3. Software Engineering Institute, East China Normal University, 3663 Zhongshan Road (North), 200062, Shanghai, China

    Huibiao Zhu

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Aichernig, B.K. (2013). Model-Based Mutation Testing of Reactive Systems. In: Liu, Z., Woodcock, J., Zhu, H. (eds) Theories of Programming and Formal Methods. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8051. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39698-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39698-4_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-39697-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-39698-4

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