Experimental results from an automatic test case generator

Abstract

Constraint-based testing is a novel way of generating test data to detect specific types of common programming faults. The conditions under which faults will be detected are encoded as mathematical systems of constraints in terms of program symbols. A set of tools, collectively called Godzilla, has been implemented that automatically generates constraint systems and solves them to create test cases for use by the Mothra testing system. Experimental results from using Godzilla show that the technique can produce test data that is very close in terms of mutation adequacy to test data that is produced manually, and at substantially reduced cost. Additionally, these experiments have suggested a new procedure for unit testing, where test cases are viewed as throw-away items rather than scarce resources.