Högskolan i Skövde

A number of combination strategies have been proposed during the last fifteen years. Combination strategies are test case selection methods where test cases are identified by combining interesting values of the test object's input parameters. Although some results, achieved from small isolated experiments and investigations, point in the direction that these methods are useful in practical testing. Few attempts have been made to investigate these methods under realistic testing conditions. We outline a thesis proposal that is an attempt to determine if combination strategies are feasible alternatives to the currently used test case selection methods in practical testing.

For combination strategies to be feasible alternatives to use in practical testing we require two things. Firstly, the combination strategies need to be effective in finding faults, at least as effective as currently used methods. Secondly, the cost per fault found when using combination strategies should not exceed the corresponding cost for the currently used methods.

To investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of combination strategies we need to establish a benchmark from practical testing and then compare that with how combination strategies perform in the same or similar situations.

Further, we need a testing process targeted for the use of combination strategies to be able to assess the complete cost of using combination strategies. Thus, an important part of this research project is to develop a combination strategies testing process. In particular, the activities of selecting combination strategies to use and transforming the requirements on the test object into a format suitable for combination strategies are focused on. These activities are specific to combination strategies and not very well understood.

The methods used for achieving our research goal include literature surveys, investigation of the state-of-practice, with respect to used test case selection methods and cost of testing, experiments, tool implementations, and proof-of-concept, in the form of a case study. In addition to the direct results of our investigations we expect this research to result in detailed information about how to use the suggested test process. This information will include work instructions covering the manual parts. The process information will also include functional descriptions of the tools as well as interface descriptions of the input and output formats of each tool. These tool descriptions will make the test process generic in the sense that alternative tool implementations can be evaluated keeping everything else constant.