Metric Space-based Test-data Adequacy Criteria

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Since software testing cannot ordinarily be expected to provide conclusive evidence that a program is correct, software engineers have had to be satisfied with the vague notion of a set of test data being adequate for a given program. In this paper a theoretical model is provided for the notion of adequacy. Adequacy criteria are seen as serving to distinguish a given program from a certain class of programs. In particular, notions of distance between programs are studied, and adequacy of a test set is taken to mean that the set successfully distinguishes the program being tested from all programs that are sufficiently near to it, and differ in input-output behaviour from the given program. Certain points, called critical, are identified which must occur in every adequate test set. Finally, lower bounds are obtained on the size of test sets which are minimally adequate, in the sense that they have no adequate proper subsets.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: