Combining Symbolic Execution and Search-Based Testing for Programs with Complex Heap Inputs
Despite the recent improvements in automatic test case generation, handling complex data structures as test inputs is still an open problem. Search-based approaches can generate sequences of method calls that instantiate structured inputs to exercise a relevant portion of the code, but fall short in building inputs to execute program elements whose reachability is determined by the structural features of the input structures themselves. Symbolic execution techniques can effectively handle structured inputs, but do not identify the sequences of method calls that instantiate the input structures through legal interfaces. In this paper, we propose a new approach to automatically generate test cases for programs with complex data structures as inputs. We use symbolic execution to generate path conditions that characterise the dependencies between the program paths and the input structures, and convert the path conditions to optimisation problems that we solve with search-based techniques to produce sequences of method calls that instantiate those inputs. Our preliminary results show that the approach is indeed effective in generating test cases for programs with complex data structures as inputs, thus opening a promising research direction.
Mon 10 JulDisplayed time zone: Tijuana, Baja California change
16:00 - 17:15 | |||
16:00 25mTalk | Accelerating Array Constraints in Symbolic Execution Technical Papers David Mitchel Perry Purdue University, Andrea Mattavelli Imperial College London, Xiangyu Zhang Purdue University, Cristian Cadar Imperial College London DOI | ||
16:25 25mTalk | Improving the Cost-Effectiveness of Symbolic Testing Techniques for Transport Protocol Implementations under Packet Dynamics Technical Papers Wei Sun University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, Lisong Xu University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, Sebastian Elbaum University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA DOI | ||
16:50 25mTalk | Combining Symbolic Execution and Search-Based Testing for Programs with Complex Heap Inputs Technical Papers Pietro Braione University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, Giovanni Denaro University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, Andrea Mattavelli Imperial College London, Mauro Pezzè University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy DOI |