Generating various contexts from permissions for testing Android applications

Abstract

Abstract-Context-awareness of mobile applications yields several issues for testing, since the mobile applications should be testable in any environment and with any contextual input. In previous studies of testing for Android applications as eventdriven systems, many researchers have focused on using the generated test cases considering only GUI events. However, it is difficult to detect failures in the changes in the context in which applications run. It is important to consider various contexts since the mobile applications adapt and use novel features and sensors of mobile devices. In this paper, we provide the method of systematically generating various executing contexts from permissions. By referring the lists of permissions, the resources that the applications use for running Android applications can be inferred easily. The various contexts of an application can be generated by permuting resource conditions, and the permutations of the contexts are prioritized. We have evaluated the usefulness and effectiveness of our method by showing that our method contributes to detect faults.

Automated Testing of Android Apps: A Systematic Literature Review

“…It re-executes all the unit test cases every time when a piece of code is changed. As an example, Hu et al [84] have applied unit testing to [26] CRASHSCOPE [27] MAMBA [28] Pretect [29] DroidMate [93] SSDA [30] TrimDroid [8] ERVA [9] Clapp et al [10] SAPIENZ [11] RacerDroid [31] Baek et al [94] DiagDroid [32] MobiPlay [95] MOTIF [33] DRUN [34] DroidDEV [96] GAT [35] Zhang et al [36] Jabbarvand et al [37] Qian et al [38] Ermuth et al [39] Cadage [97] Zhang et al [40] Zhang et al [41] dLens [42] Sonny et al [98] Packeviius et al [43] SIG-Droid [99] Knorr et al [44] TAST [100] IntentDroid [45] Griebe et al [101] Farto et al [46] Bielik et al [47] MobiGUITAR [48] AGRippin [102] Aktouf et al [49] THOR [103] AppAudit [50] Morgado et al [104] Hassanshahi et al [51] iMPAcT [52] Deng et al [53] Espada et al…”

“…Table 5 summarises the aforementioned test phases, where the most recurrently applied testing phase is system testing (accounting for nearly 80% of the selected publications), followed by unit testing and integration testing, respectively. [26] CRASHSCOPE [27] MAMBA [28] Pretect [29] DroidMate [93] SSDA [30] TrimDroid [8] ERVA [9] Clapp et al [10] SAPIENZ [11] RacerDroid [31] Baek et al [94] DiagDroid [32] MobiPlay [95] MOTIF [33] DRUN [34] DroidDEV [96] GAT [35] Zhang et al [36] Jabbarvand et al [37] Qian et al [38] Ermuth et al [39] Cadage [97] Zhang et al [40] Zhang et al [41] dLens [42] Sonny et al [98] Packeviius et al…”

“…Table 9 enumerates the coverage metrics used in the literature, where LoC appears to be the most concerned metric. [40] Bug dLens [42], TEMA [123], Hu et al [84], MobiGUITAR [48] Defect APSET [61] Fault QUANTUM [56], Vikomir et al [59], Sonny et al [98] Crash Shahriar et al [60], Caiipa [107], .CRASHSCOPE [27] Vulnerability Sadeh et al [124], IntentDroid [45] Leakage CRAXDroid [57], Yang et al [58] Ground Truth refers to a reference dataset where each element is labelled. In this SLR, we consider two types of ground truths.…”

TEGDroid: Test Case Generation Approach for Android Apps Considering Context and GUI Events

“…Numerous testing techniques have been proposed for testing mobile apps in the past few years. However, most of the testing techniques for mobile apps generate test cases considering only GUI events such as [14,15] without sufficient support for testing context events [16,17]. Therefore, it will be difficult to identify other defects in the changes in the contexts, which can be inclined by the context in which an application runs [16].…”

“…However, most of the testing techniques for mobile apps generate test cases considering only GUI events such as [14,15] without sufficient support for testing context events [16,17]. Therefore, it will be difficult to identify other defects in the changes in the contexts, which can be inclined by the context in which an application runs [16]. In order to ensure that these applications behave correctly, external context events must be considered during testing such as those from GPS location data, sensors, network in addition to the GUI events.…”