ICTSS 2025
Wed 17 - Fri 19 September 2025 Limassol, Cyprus
co-located with ECSA 2025

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Thu 18 Sep 2025 16:25 - 16:50 at Atrium C - Foundations and Advanced Testing Techniques Chair(s): Bertrand Meyer

Testing processes usually aim at high coverage, but loops severely limit coverage ambitions since the number of iterations is generally not predictable. The most common solution is extreme: limit testing to branch coverage, which only considers loop executions that iterate the body either once or not at all. This approach might miss bugs that only arises after extensive iterations.

To achieve more meaningful coverage, testing strategies may unroll loops, in the sense of using executions that iterate loops up to n times for some n greater than one, chosen pragmatically in consideration of the available computational power.

While loop unrolling is a standard part of compiler optimization techniques, its use in testing is less common. Part of the reason is that the concept, while seemingly intuitive, lacks a generally accepted and precise specification. The present article provides a formal definition and a set of formal properties of unrolling. All the properties have mechanically been proved correct (through the Isabelle proof assistant).

Using this definition, we have applied an unrolling strategy to an automated testing framework and report the results: how many more bugs get detected once we unroll loops to a certain level? These results provide a first assessment of whether unrolling should become a standard part of test generation and test coverage measurement.

This program is tentative and subject to change.

Thu 18 Sep

Displayed time zone: Athens change

16:00 - 17:40
Foundations and Advanced Testing TechniquesGeneral Track at Atrium C
Chair(s): Bertrand Meyer Constructor Institute Schaffhausen
16:00
25m
Talk
A Time Series Analysis of Assertions in the Linux Kernel
General Track
Jukka Ruohonen University of Southern Denmark
16:25
25m
Talk
Loop unrolling: formal definition and application to testing
General Track
Li Huang Constructor Institute Schaffhausen, Reto Weber PhD Student of Constructor Institute of Technology, Bertrand Meyer Constructor Institute Schaffhausen
16:50
25m
Talk
On using Homing Sequences instead of Distinguishing in FSM-based Testing
General Track
Natalia Kushik SAMOVAR, Télécom SudParis, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Nina Yevtushenko Ivannikov Institute for System Programming of the RussianAcademy of Sciences
17:15
25m
Talk
Testability Indicators for Refactoring
General Track
Tom Holvoet imec-DistriNet KU Leuven