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A Random Testing Approach Using Pushdown Automata

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Tests and Proofs (TAP 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6706))

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Abstract

Developing efficient and automatic testing techniques is one of the major challenges facing the software validation community. Recent work by Denise and al. (in MBT’08 proceedings) shows how to draw traces uniformly at random in large systems modeled by finite automata for testing purposes. Since finite automata are strong abstractions of systems, many generated test cases following this approach may be un-concretizable, i.e., do not correspond to any concrete execution of the system under test. In this paper, we propose to tackle this problem by extending the approach to pushdown systems that can encode either a stack data structure or the call stack. The method is based on context-free grammar algorithms, and relies on combinatorial techniques to guarantee the uniformity of generated traces.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LIFC INRIA-CASSIS, 16 route de Gray, 25030, Besançon Cedex, France

    Pierre-Cyrille Héam & Catherine Masson

Authors
  1. Pierre-Cyrille Héam
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  2. Catherine Masson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fachbereich Mathematik/Informatik, Universität Bremen, Bibliothekstr.1, 28334, Bremen, Germany

    Martin Gogolla

  2. Université Paris-Sud 11, Parc Club Orsay Université, ZAC des vignes, 4, rue Jacuqes Monod, 91893, Orsay Cedex, France

    Burkhart Wolff

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Héam, PC., Masson, C. (2011). A Random Testing Approach Using Pushdown Automata. In: Gogolla, M., Wolff, B. (eds) Tests and Proofs. TAP 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6706. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21768-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21768-5_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21767-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21768-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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