Testability Transformation for Efficient Automated Test Data Search in the Presence of Nesting
Phil McMinn, David Binkley, Mark Harman · 2005
The application of metaheuristic search techniques to the automatic generation of software test data has been shown to be an e#ective approach for a variety of testing criteria. However, for structural testing, the dependence of a target structure on nested decision statements can cause efficiency problems for the search, and failure in severe cases. This is because all information useful for guiding the search - in the form of the values of variables at branching predicates - is only gradually made available as each nested conditional is satisfied, one after the other. The provision of guidance is further restricted by the fact that the path up to that conditional must be maintained by obeying the constraints imposed by `earlier' conditionals. An empirical