Application of meta-heuristic algorithms for automated software test data generation

Abstract

The quality of a developed software system depends on factors such as reliability, maintainability, scalability etc. To deliver reliable software, it is necessary that it is defect free. In order to achieve this objective, the software system needs to be thoroughly tested. Since exhaustive testing is not possible, it is necessary to identify suitable test data that helps in improving the quality of a software product. Manual generation of test data is laborious and time consuming due to the presence of a huge number of decision nodes in a program. Meta-heuristic algorithms can help in such scenario by generating optimal test data automatically, from a very large search space of candidate solutions. In this paper, an attempt is made to automatically generate test data using five meta-heuristic algorithms. The proposed approach is applied for a case study bank ATM. Results show that meta-heuristics are efficient in generating optimal test data.