Projects
- Enhanced Random Testing - Towards Better Cost Effectiveness and Fault Detection Capabilities (Funding: ARC Discovery Project: DP0557246; Partners: Professor T. H. Tse (University of Hong Kong); Duration: 2005-2007)
Partition and random testing are the most common methods in software quality assurance. Our previous investigations have shown that the more evenly test cases are spread across the set of program inputs, the fewer cases will be required to detect the faults. In this project, we investigate how to enhance random testing so that test cases can be spread more evenly in a cost- effective manner, in order to yield better fault-detecting capabilities. Not only will this project have an impact on the theoretical foundation of software quality, but the resulting methodologies will improve the efficacy of software testing in practice. - Metamorphic Testing: An In-Depth Study to Enhance the Failure-Detection Capability of Software Testing Without an Oracle (Funding: ARC Discovery Project: DP0771733; Duration: 2007-2011)
There is an emerging growth in software facing the oracle problem --- no mechanism or too expensive to verify the outputs. Such software includes Internet search engines, medical diagnosis systems and bioinformatics systems. We propose an in-depth study of metamorphic testing to enhance the failure- detection capability of testing without an oracle. Besides identifying useful metamorphic relations, we shall integrate our approach with other techniques in test case selection, fault-based testing and symbolic execution, with a view to developing a more comprehensive testing methodology. The project will contribute to the foundations of software testing, discover new effective testing methods and help to improve the quality of software.
- Improving testing efficiency via test case prioritization (Funding: Research Development Scheme 2006, Swinburne University of Technology; Duration: Jan Dec 2006)
- Fault based test case generation for Software (Funding: ARC Discovery Project 2005; Duration: 2005 2007)
This research explores ways to generate fault based test cases from specifications to verify software applications. This will help to enhance knowledge and skills on frontier software technologies for building and transforming Australian IT industries. The results provide knowledge, methodologies and technologies to software industry in Australia on building better quality software faster. In addition, it will help to reveal faults earlier in the development phase. Software companies in Australia can apply these techniques to improve their software development process and, hence, enhance the quality of their product. They can also adapt the knowledge to manage and enhance the quality of their outsourcing projects.
- Supplementing Black-box Testing with Logical Expression Testing Strategy (Funding: HKRGC Competitive Earmarked Research Grant (CERG) Project 2004; Duration: Oct. 2004 Sep. 2007)
- Fault based test case generation from formal specifications (Funding: Research Development Grants Scheme 2004, Swinburne University of Technology; Duration: Jan Dec 2004)
- Fault based test case generation for complex systems (Funding: Research Development Grants Scheme 2003, Swinburne University of Technology; Duration: Jan Dec 2003)
- WEB-BEAT: a WEB based Boolean Expression Automatic Test case generator (Funding: School of Information Technology, Swinburne University of Technology; Duration: Jan Dec 2003)
- On Testing Non-Testable Information Retrieval Systems with Geographic Components on the Web (Funding: Microsoft Virtual Earth Academic Research Collaboration 2007 RFP Awards; Partners: Dr. Zhi Quan Zhou, Professor T.H. Tse and Professor Kai-Yuan Cai; Duration: 2007)
Testing and debugging account for over fifty percent of the total cost
of software development. Compared with other quality aspects of
information retrieval systems on the Web, such as performance and
capacity, functional correctness is more fundamental but its
verification suffers from the oracle problem. It is very expensive or
even impossible to decide whether outcomes of executions on real-world
data are correct. For example, how can testers decide whether the
result returned by a system that finds the shortest route is indeed the
shortest among all possible routes, or whether the results returned by
a Web search engine are complete? Using a metamorphic testing method
that verifies necessary properties of software applications, we have
detected various failures in the Microsoft search engine Live Search,
as well as, in other major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and
Lycos. Based on these preliminary research findings, we are developing
a novel method for detecting failures in Web search engines. We shall
develop a fully automatic method for testing information retrieval
systems with geographic components on the Web. - Integration of Metamorphic Testing and Model Checking (Funding: ARC 2007 Linkage International Award; Partners: Professor Huimin Lin; Duration: 2007-2009)
This project proposes an innovative approach of integrating metamorphic testing and model checking. Its main outcome will be to deliver a comprehensive testing method that will help to reduce errors and costs in software development and consequently to improve the quality of software systems.
- Failure-Based Testing: An In-Depth Theoretical and Experimental Study (Funding: ARC DP0880295; Duration: 2008-2010)
Since the testing of all possible inputs to a program is prohibitively expensive or even impossible in many situations, test case selection is regarded as the most important activity in software testing. Failure-causing inputs are usually amalgamated into failure patterns that exhibit various features. Our previous investigations, making use of the shapes of failure patterns to design test cases, delivered very successful results. In this project, we propose an in-depth study of failure-based testing by investigating the impact of every feature of failure patterns. The project will contribute to the theory of software testing and deliver new effective testing methods.
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