Quality Evaluation of Test Oracles Using Mutation

Autor(es)

Maciel, Ana Claudia ; Oliveira, Rafael ; Delamaro, Marcio ; KajkoMattsson, M ; Ellingsen, P ; Maresca, P

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ADVANCES AND TRENDS IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (SOFTENG 2017); v. N/A, p. 6-pg., 2017-01-01.

Resumo

In software development, product quality is directly related to the quality of the development process. Therefore, Verification, Validation & Test (VV&T) activities performed through methods, techniques, and tools are needed for increasing productivity, quality, and cost reduction in software development. An essential point for the software testing activity is its automation, making it more reliable and less expensive. For the automation of testing activities, automated test oracles are crucial, representing a mechanism (program, process, or data) that indicates whether the output obtained for a test case is correct. In this paper, we use the concept of program mutation to create alternative implementations of oracles and evaluate their quality. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) propose specific mutation operators for oracles; (2) present a useful support tool for such mutation operators; and (3) establish an alternative to evaluate assertion-based test oracles. Through an empirical evaluation, our main finding is that mutations may help in assessing and improving the quality of test oracles, generating new oracles and/or test cases and decreasing the rate of test oracles errors. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 14/09629-1 - Avaliação da qualidade de oráculos de teste utilizando mutação
• Beneficiário: Ana Claudia Maciel
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Mestrado