X-Monkey: a library to extend the monkey testing
Lucas Simão da Costa, Ismayle Sousa Santos, Isabely N. Costa, Rossana M. C. Andrade · 2022 17th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI) · 2022
Automation plays a key role during software testing activities since it reduces the cost and the risk of human error during execution. Random testing is one aspect of automation, which consists in performing a series of random events in a given application by setting only input parameters and execution modes. One of the most used tools for random testing in Android applications is the Monkey provided by Google. This tool executes random tests from input parameters that represent the domain of interactions allowed by the Android operating system. However, its configuration depends on the tester’s experience and a few tools exist supporting the Monkey’s usage. In this sense, we present the X-Monkey library that makes running the Monkey easier on all application’s screens and may support the configuration of Monkey’s parameters according to the UI elements present on the screens. Two experiments were conducted with Android applications to assess this library. The results indicated that the X-Monkey did not increase the number of crashes found, but it helped to identify which screens have crashes. Furthermore, the results also show that it is possible to achieve higher code coverage using the X-Monkey library.