Testing Concurrent Programs Research Articles

AIDA: A dynamic analyzer for Ada programs

This article presents a dynamic analyzer for Ada programs called AIDA. In software engineering, previous dynamic analyzers have often incorporated first-order logic assertion languages. For dynamic testing of both sequential and concurrent programs, however, temporal logic may be advantageous because it deals with the development of situations over time. AIDA investigates the applicability of temporal logic in building a dynamic analyzer for Ada programs. AIDA is designed to test, debug, and specify programs written in the Ada language. It affects the instrumentation of programs as well as collecting, organizing, and reporting of results of the instrumented program. The instrumentation approach is based on the idea that the intended function of a program can often be specified in terms of assertions or values that must be assumed by variables at certain strategic points in the program. This article describes the design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of AIDA. The goal of this work is to apply AIDA as a comprehensive dynamic analyzer for Ada programs. AIDA can handle sequential processes and concurrent tasks, and it can understand fully all Ada statements.

AIDA: a dynamic analyser for Ada programs

In this paper, we have developed a dynamic analyser for Ada programs, called AIDA. In software engineering, dynamic analysers that have been built previously have often incorporated first-order-logic assertion languages. For dynamic testing of both sequential and concurrent programs, however, temporal logic may be advantageous since it deals with the development of situations over time. AIDA investigates the applicability of temporal logic in building a dynamic analyser for Ada programs. AIDA is designed to test, debug and specify programs written in the Ada language. It affects the instrumentation of programs as well as the collecting, organizing and reporting of results of the executions of the instrumented program. The instrumentation approach is based on the idea that the intended function of a program can often be specified in terms of assertions or values that must be assumed by variables, at certain strategic points in the program. This paper describes the design, implementation and experimental evaluation of AIDA. The goal of this work is to apply AIDA as a comprehensive dynamic analyser for Ada programs. AIDA can handle sequential processes, and concurrent tasks as well as it can understand fully all Ada statements.

Structural testing of concurrent programs

Although structural testing techniques are among the weakest available with regard to developing confidence in sequential programs, they are not without merit. The authors extend the notion of structural testing criteria to concurrent programs and propose a hierarchy of supporting structural testing techniques. Coverage criteria described include concurrency state coverage, state transition coverage and synchronization coverage. Requisite support tools include a static concurrency analyzer and either a program transformation system or a powerful run-time monitor. Also helpful is a controllable run-time scheduler. The techniques proposed are suitable for Ada or CSP-like languages. Best results are obtained for programs having only static naming of tasking objects. >

Path analysis testing of concurrent programs

Path analysis testing is a widely used approach to program testing. However, the conventional path analysis testing method is designed specifically for sequential program testing; it is inapplicable to concurrent program testing because of the existence of multi-loci of control and task synchronizations. A path analysis approach to concurrent program testing is proposed. A concurrent path model is presented to model the execution behaviour of concurrent programs. In the model, an execution of a concurrent program is seen as involving a concurrent path (which is comprised of the paths of all concurrent tasks), and the tasks' synchronizations are modelled as a concurrent route to traverse the concurrent path involved in the execution. Accordingly, testing is a process to examine the correctness of each concurrent route along all concurrent paths of concurrent programs. Examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of path analysis testing for concurrent programs and some practical issues of path analysis testing, namely, test path selection, test generation, and test execution, are discussed. Moreover, the errors of concurrent programs are classified into three classes: domain errors, computation errors, and missing path errors, similar to the error classification for sequential programs. Based on the error classification, the potential reliability of path analysis testing for concurrent programs is assessed.

Replay and testing for concurrent programs

Attention is given to the problems that arise during the testing and debugging cycle of concurrent programs because of their nondeterministic execution behavior, whereby multiple executions of a concurrent program with the same input may exercise different synchronization sequences and even produce different results. These problems are solved by using deterministic execution debugging and testing. The purpose of deterministic execution debugging to to replay executions of a concurrent program so that debugging information can be collected. Examples of semaphores and monitors are used to illustrate the approach and the process of designing replay tubes is described. The use of regression testing to see if earlier debugging and testing introduced new errors, is examined.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Steps to an Advanced Ada1Programming Environment

Conceptual simplicity, tight coupling of tools, and effective support of host-target software development will characterize advanced Ada programming support environments. Several important principles have been demonstrated in the Arcturus system, including template-assisted Ada editing, command completion using Ada as a command language, and combining the advantages of interpretation and compilation. Other principles, relating to analysis, testing, and debugging of concurrent Ada programs, have appeared in other contexts. This paper discusses several of these topics, considers how they can be integrated, and argues for their inclusion in an environment appropriate for software development in the late 1980's.

Arcturus

The Arcturus system demonstrates several important principles that will characterize advanced Ada programming support environments. These include conceptual simplicity, tight coupling of tools, and effective command and editing concepts. Arcturus supports interactive program development and permits the combined use of interpretive and compiled execution. Arcturus is not complete however, as practical, mature environments for Ada must also support the development, analysis, testing, and debugging of concurrent programs. These issues are currently being explored. Arcturus, therefore is a platform for experimental exploration of key programming environment issues. This paper focuses primarily on the current system, describing and illustrating some of its components, while issues less fully developed are more briefly described.

Arcturus

The Arcturus system demonstrates several important principles that will characterize advanced Ada programming support environments. These include conceptual simplicity, tight coupling of tools, and effective command and editing concepts. Arcturus supports interactive program development and permits the combined use of interpretive and compiled execution. Arcturus is not complete however, as practical, mature environments for Ada must also support the development, analysis, testing, and debugging of concurrent programs. These issues are currently being explored. Arcturus, therefore is a platform for experimental exploration of key programming environment issues. This paper focuses primarily on the current system, describing and illustrating some of its components, while issues less fully developed are more briefly described.