J3 Model: A novel framework for improved Modified Condition/Decision Coverage analysis

Abstract

In the real-time systems and safety critical domains, software quality assurance adheres to protocols such as DO-178C standard. Regarding these issues, concolic testing generates test cases that can attain high coverage using an augmented approach based on Modified Condition/Decision Coverage (MC/DC). In this paper, we propose a framework to compute MC/DC percentage for test case generation. To achieve an increase in MC/DC, we transform the input Java program, J, into its transformed version, J′, using Java Program Code Transformer (JPCT). Then, we use JCUTE tool to generate test cases. At last, we use Java Coverage Analyzer (JCA) to compute MC/DC percentage. The Java program code transformer adds additional empty nested if-else conditional statements for each decision that causes variation in MC/DC percentage. In later step, these extra conditional statements get stripped-off. This approach resolves some of the bottleneck issues associated with traditional concolic testers. In our experimental study, we have experimented with forty Java programs. We have computed the difference of MC/DC%, for both the scenarios (i.e. with code transformation and without code transformation). Our approach (i.e. with code transformation achieves) 24.09% average increase in MC/DC% over the traditional approach (i.e. without code transformation).