The AETG system: an approach to testing based on combinatorial design

This paper describes a new approach to testing that uses combinatorial designs to generate tests that cover the pairwise, triple, or n-way combinations of a system's test parameters. These are the parameters that determine the system's test scenarios. Examples are system configuration para...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on software engineering 1997-07, Vol.23 (7), p.437-444
Main Authors: Cohen, D.M., Dalal, S.R., Fredman, M.L., Patton, G.C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Application software
Applied sciences
Asynchronous transfer mode
Computer science
control theory
systems
Computer Society
Costs
Design for experiments
Design techniques
Exact sciences and technology
Interoperability
Monitoring
Product development
Programming
Software
Software engineering
Software testing
Studies
System testing
Telephony
Testing
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Summary:This paper describes a new approach to testing that uses combinatorial designs to generate tests that cover the pairwise, triple, or n-way combinations of a system's test parameters. These are the parameters that determine the system's test scenarios. Examples are system configuration parameters, user inputs and other external events. We implemented this new method in the AETG system. The AETG system uses new combinatorial algorithms to generate test sets that cover all valid n-way parameter combinations. The size of an AETG test set grows logarithmically in the number of test parameters. This allows testers to define test models with dozens of parameters. The AETG system is used in a variety of applications for unit, system, and interoperability testing. It has generated both high-level test plans and detailed test cases. In several applications, it greatly reduced the cost of test plan development.
ISSN:0098-5589
1939-3520
DOI:10.1109/32.605761