Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 2, number 1, 2009 // View article

How to compare and exploit different techniques for unit-test generation

Authors:
Alberto Bacchelli
Paolo Ciancarini
Davide Rossi

Keywords: testing; comparison methodology; failure detection; regression testing; automatic test generation tools

Abstract:
The size and complexity of software is continuously growing, and testing is one of the most important strategies for improving software reliability, quality, and design. Unit testing, in particular, forms the foundation of the testing process and it is effectively supported by automated testing frameworks. Manual unit-test creation is difficult, monotonous and time-consuming. In order to reduce the effort spent on this task, several tools have been developed. Many of them can almost automatically produce unit tests for regression avoidance or failure detection. This paper presents a practical comparison methodology to analyze different unit-testing creation tools and techniques. It validates the effectiveness of tools and spots their weaknesses and strengths. The validity of this methodology is confirmed through a real case experiment, in which both the manual implementation and different automatic test generation tools (based on random testing) are used. In addition, in order to integrate and exploit the benefits of each technique, which result from the comparison process, a testing procedure based on “best practices” is developed

Pages: 129 to 144

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2009. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 7, 2009

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628