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A major challenge in testing software like artificial intelligent, data-centric, and service-oriented software is the test oracle problem, which occurs when the expected output of a given program input is hard to determine. Instead of examining individual test results, Metamorphic Testing leverages domain-specific relations, called Metamorphic Relations, to address the test oracle problem via a series of test executions. Metamorphic testing is reported to be one of the most popular testing techniques in many application domains such as artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, and search engines. A recent literature review finds that metamorphic testing has been most extensively utilized to test web services, computer graphics, and simulation, making up 40% of related publications. It is also reported to be the most popular testing technique for AI systems. Metamorphic testing has received wide interest from the community. Over 800 research articles on “metamorphic testing” published since 2021 are indexed by Google Scholar. In this talk, we review the key concepts in the deployment of metamorphic testing. We demonstrate the design of effective metamorphic relations for service-oriented software using an example of synchronization bug detection in decentralized applications (DApps) on blockchain. We discuss the major challenges and various research opportunities.

Shing-Chi (S.C.) Cheung received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Hong Kong, and his PhD degree in Computing from the Imperial College London. After doctoral graduation, he joined the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) where he is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering. He founded the CASTLE research group at HKUST and co-founded in 2006 the International Workshop on Automation of Software Testing (AST). He serves on the editorial board of Science of Computer Programming (SCP) and Journal of Computer Science and Technology (JCST). He was an editorial board member of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE, 2006-9) and Information and Software Technology (IST, 2012-5). He participates actively in the program and organizing committees of major international software engineering conferences. He chaired the 19th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC) in 1996, 1997 and 2012. He was the General Chair of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE 2014). He is an extended member of the ACM SIGSOFT executive committee. He owns four patents in China and the United States. His research interests lie in boosting the quality of software applications using program analysis, testing, debugging, synthesis, repository mining, and artificial intelligence. Target applications include Android apps, open-source software, deep learning systems, smart contracts and spreadsheets. He is a distinguished member of the ACM and a fellow of the British Computer Society.