A test‐path determination method based on define‐use chains: Test conditions and program fault overlooks
Takeshi Nakajo, Ichiro Yamaguchi, Hitoshi Kume · Systems and Computers in Japan · 1993
Abstract When selecting the set of conditions to be tested in modular white‐box testing of fundamental program functions, various kinds of criteria are available, including the branch coverage criterion and the all‐uses criterion. But there has been very little research on the relationship of these criteria to the overlooking of program faults, and as a consequence many program faults have been discovered only in the later phases of development or at customer sites, where conditions not covered by the original testing occurred. In this paper, an attempt is made to identify the relationship between test conditions and program fault overlooks by expressing the data flows of the program as chains of define‐use relationships between two variables. The approach is tested on commercial software products for the control of measuring equipment. The results are used to develop a method of choosing test paths so as to prevent the principal overlook types, and the detection ability and computational efficiency are compared with those of conventional selection criteria. The number of tests required in the new method is comparable with that in the all‐uses method, and it is capable of preventing almost all of the overlooks that arise from the method used for test path selection.