Simone do Rocio Senger de Souza

Web Services Composition Testing: A Strategy Based on Structural Testing of Parallel Programs

Web Services have been used in the development of loosely coupled applications. Several Web Services are usually combined to create new services by a mechanism named Web Services Composition. In this paper, we present a strategy for Web Services Composition structural integration testing. Structural testing coverage criteria for services written in BPEL are also described. The concept of required element groups is defined to improve the accuracy of criteria coverage. We present a case study for assessing the applicability of proposed strategy. ValiBPEL-Web, a tool that supports the test strategy is also presented.

Structural Testing for Semaphore-Based Multithread Programs

This paper presents structural testing criteria for validation of semaphore-based multithread programs exploring control, data, communication and synchronization information. A post-mortem method based on timestamps is defined to determine the implicit communication among threads using shared variables. The applicability of the coverage testing criteria is illustrated by a case study.

Research in concurrent software testing: a systematic review

The current increased demand for distributed applications in domains such as web services and cloud computing has significantly increased interest in concurrent programming. This demand in turn has resulted in new testing methodologies for such systems, which take account of the challenges necessary to test these applications. This paper presents a systematic review of the published research related to concurrent testing approaches, bug classification and testing tools. A systematic review is a process of collection, assessment and interpretation of the published papers related to a specific search question, designed to provide a background for further research. The results include information about the research relationships and research teams that are working in the different areas of concurrent programs testing.

A systematic review on search based mutation testing

ContextSearch Based Software Testing refers to the use of meta-heuristics for the optimization of a task in the context of software testing. Meta-heuristics can solve complex problems in which an optimum solution must be found among a large amount of possibilities. The use of meta-heuristics in testing activities is promising because of the high number of inputs that should be tested. Previous studies on search based software testing have focused on the application of meta-heuristics for the optimization of structural and functional criteria. Recently, some researchers have proposed the use of SBST for mutation testing and explored solutions for the cost of application of this testing criterion. ObjectiveThe objective is to identify how SBST has been explored in the context of mutation testing, how fitness functions are defined and the challenges and research opportunities in the application of meta-heuristic search techniques. MethodA systematic review involving 263 papers published between 1996 and 2014 examined the studies on the use of meta-heuristic search techniques for the optimization of mutation testing. ResultsThe results show meta-heuristic search techniques have been applied for the optimization of test data generation, mutant generation and selection of effective mutation operators. Five meta-heuristic techniques, namely Genetic Algorithm, Ant Colony, Bacteriological Algorithm, Hill Climbing and Simulated Annealing have been used in search based mutation testing. The review addressed different fitness functions used to guide the search. ConclusionSearch based mutation testing is a field of interest, however, some issues remain unexplored. For instance, the use of meta-heuristics for the selection of effective mutation operators was identified in only one study. The results have pointed a range of possibilities for new studies to be developed, i.e., identification of equivalent mutants, experimental studies and application to different domains, such as concurrent programs.

Structural testing for message‐passing concurrent programs: an extended test model

Developing high‐quality, error‐free message‐passing concurrent programs is not trivial. Although a number of different primitives with associated semantics are available to assist such development, they often increase the complexity of the testing process. In this paper, we extend our previous test model for message‐passing programs and present new structural testing criteria, taking into account additional features used in this paradigm, such as collective communication, non‐blocking sends, distinct semantics for non‐blocking receives, and persistent operations. Our new model also recognizes that sender primitives cannot always be matched with every receive primitive. This improvement allows us to remove statically a significant number of infeasible synchronization edges that would otherwise have to be analyzed later by the tester. In this paper, the test model is presented using the Message‐Passing Interface standard; however, our new model has been designed to be flexible, and it can be configured to support a range of different message‐passing environments or languages. We have carried out case studies showing the applicability of the new test model to represent message‐passing programs and also to reveal errors, mainly those errors related to inter‐process communication. In addition to increasing the number of features supported by the test model, we have also reduced the overall cost of testing significantly. Our case studies suggest that the number of synchronization edges can be reduced by up to 93%, mainly by eliminating infeasible edges between unmatchable communication primitives. The main contribution of the paper is to present a more flexible test model that provides improved coverage for message‐passing programs and at the same time reduces the cost of testing significantly. Copyright

Event- and Coverage-Based Testing of Web Services

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) fosters the development of loosely coupled applications. Web services have been favored as a promising technology to implement SOAs. Since web services are often involved in complex business processes and safety-critical systems, it is important that they are of high level of reliability. In this paper a strategy for event-based testing of web services is introduced which enables a systematic test case generation for structural testing with the focus on code coverage. The novelty of the approach stems from its integration of an event-based view with a coverage-based view. This forms a combination of black- and white-box testing leading to grey-box testing. A bank service example illustrates the strategy.

Mutation Testing in Procedural and Object-Oriented Paradigms: An Evaluation of Data Structure Programs

Para auxiliar a definição e evolução de estratégias de testes estudos experimentais vêm sendo realizados comparando os critérios de teste em relação ao custo, eficácia e dificuldade de satisfação. Entretanto poucos estudos foram realizados com o objetivo de comparar critérios em diferentes paradigmas. Este trabalho apresenta um estudo experimental comparando o custo do critério Análise de Mutantes nos paradigmas Procedimental e Orientado a Objetos. Foi utilizado um conjunto de 32 programas do domínio de estrutura de dados com versões implementadas em C e em Java. Para tal estudo utilizaram-se as ferramentas Proteum e MuClipse. Foi avaliado também o strength do conjunto de casos de testes adequado a um programa em um paradigma na mesma versão do programa implementado no outro paradigma de interesse (cross scoring). Resultados indicam que tanto o custo quanto o strength do teste de mutação é maior em programas implementados no paradigma Procedimental do que no paradigma OO. Resultado este certamente influenciado pelo conjunto de operadores implementado nas duas ferramentas.

ValiPVM - A Graphical Tool for Structural Testing of PVM Programs

This work presents ValiPVM, a testing tool for C/PVM parallel programs. This tool implements structural coverage criteria, using an architecture already employed for MPI programs. It supports generation and evaluation of test sets and considers the control, data and communication flows of PVM programs. ValiPVM has a graphical user interface, designed to facilitate the test execution, analysis of results and to guide the user during the execution of the testing activity.

Data Flow Testing in Concurrent Programs with Message Passing and Shared Memory Paradigms

Abstract This paper proposes a novel structural test model to capture information about flows of data, control, communication and syn- chronization of parallel and distributed applications interacting through both message passing and shared memory paradigms. Our main focus is the data flow among threads of different processes, considering the operations of communication and syn- chronization related to such flow. This inter-process data-flow represents a challenge to the tester, who must consider the heterogeneity of programming paradigms and languages. The information captured by the test model is used by new testing criteria, which improve the testing activity quality. The proposed model and criteria were applied to an object-oriented and distributed application developed in Java. The results suggest that the model and the criteria are able to represent distributed applications developed with message passing and shared memory paradigms. The main contribution of this paper is to present a more flexible test model capable of improving the structural test activity related to the data flow on processes and threads simultaneously.

The Use of Visual Text Mining to Support the Study Selection Activity in Systematic Literature Reviews: A Replication Study

Background: Systematic literature reviews (SLRs)are an important component to identify and aggregate research evidence from different empirical studies. One of the activities associated with the SLR process is the selection of primary studies. The process used to select primary studies can be arduous, particularly when the researcher faces large volumes of primary studies. Aim: An experiment was conducted as a pilot test to compare the performance and effectiveness of graduate students in selecting primary studies manually and using visual text mining (VTM) techniques. This paper describes a replication study. Method: The same experimental design and materials of the previous experiment were used in the current experiment. Result: The previous experiment revealed that VTM techniques can speed up the selection of primary studies and increase the number of studies correctly included/excluded (effectiveness). The results of the replication confirmed that studies are more rapidly selected using VTM. We observed that the level of experience in researching has a direct relationship with the effectiveness. Conclusion: VTM techniques have proven valuable in the selection of primary studies.