Compiler test case generation methods: a survey and assessment

Abstract

Software testing is an important and critical phase of the application software development life cycle. Testing is a time consuming and costly stage that requires a high degree of ingenuity. In the development stages of safety-critical and dependable computer software such as language compilers and real-time embedded software, testing activities consume about 50% of the project time. In this work we address the area of compiler testing. The aim of compiler testing is to verify that the compiler implementation conforms to its specifications, which is to generate an object code that faithfully corresponds to the language semantic and syntax as specified in the language documentation. A compiler should be carefully verified before its release, since it has to be used by many users. Finding an optimal and complete test suite that can be used in the testing process is often an exhaustive task. Various methods have been proposed for the generation of compiler test cases. Many papers have been published on testing compilers, most of which address classical programming languages. In this paper, we assess and compare various compiler testing techniques with respect to some selected criteria and also propose some new research directions in compiler testing of modem programming languages.