Query-based test generation for database applications

Chays, David; Shahid, John; Frankl, Phyllis G.

doi:10.1145/1385269.1385277

Cited by 30 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The AGENDA tool [42], [43], [44], [45] is loosely related to the category-partition method and uses heuristics to fill the test database. Different criteria may be used to populate the databases.…”

Section: Testing Database Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage-Aware Test Database Reduction

Tuya

Riva

Suárez-Cabal

et al. 2016

IIEEE Trans. Software Eng.

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Abstract-Functional testing of applications that process the information stored in databases often requires a careful design of the test database. The larger the test database, the more difficult it is to develop and maintain tests as well as to load and reset the test data. This paper presents an approach to reduce a database with respect to a set of SQL queries and a coverage criterion. The reduction procedures search the rows in the initial database that contribute to the coverage in order to find a representative subset that satisfies the same coverage as the initial database. The approach is automated and efficiently executed against large databases and complex queries. The evaluation is carried out over two real life applications and a well-known database benchmark. The results show a very large degree of reduction as well as scalability in relation to the size of the initial database and the time needed to perform the reduction.

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Section: Testing Database Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coverage-Aware Test Database Reduction

Tuya

Riva

Suárez-Cabal

et al. 2016

IIEEE Trans. Software Eng.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In this section, we discuss how to capture the desirable aggregate constraints on the result set returned for one or more specific queries issued from a database application. These constraints play a key role in testing database applications but previous work (Chays et al 2008;Deng and Chays 2005) on generating database states has often not taken them into account.…”

Section: Dealing With Aggregate Calculationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Program-input generation for testing database applications using existing database states

Pan

Xie

2014

Autom Softw Eng

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Testing is essential for quality assurance of database applications. Achieving high code coverage of the database applications is important in testing. In practice, there may exist a copy of live databases that can be used for database application testing. Using an existing database state is desirable since it tends to be representative of real-world objects' characteristics, helping detect faults that could cause failures in real-world settings. However, to cover a specific program-code portion (e.g., block), appropriate program inputs also need to be generated for the given existing database state. To address this issue, in this paper, we propose a novel approach that generates program inputs for achieving high code coverage of a database application, given an existing database state. Our approach uses symbolic execution to track how program inputs are transformed before appearing in the executed SQL queries and how the constraints on query results affect the application's execution. One significant challenge in our problem context is the gap between program-input constraints derived from the program and from the given existing database state; satisfying both types of constraints is needed to cover a specific program-code portion. Our approach includes novel query 123 Autom Softw Eng formulation to bridge this gap. We incorporate the data-instantiation component in our framework to deal with the case that no effective program input values can be attained. We determine how to generate new records and populate them in the new database state such that the code along the path can be covered. We also extend our approach of program-input generation to test database applications including canonical queries and group-by queries. Our approach is loosely integrated into Pex, a state-of-the-art white-box testing tool for .NET from Microsoft Research. Empirical evaluations on two real database applications show that our approach assists Pex to generate program inputs that achieve higher code coverage than the program inputs generated by Pex without our approach's assistance.

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“…However, the data created with those tools is often not meaningful for functional applications testing; rather, it is mostly used for application scaling tests. Chays et al propose the use of a test GENerator for Database Applications (AGENDA) [14,15,16], which generates database states based on the SQL statements used in the application and on the tester"s suggestions as captured in the input files. Specifically, the tester specifies sample values for the attributes that can be partitioned into groups, each of which are expected to cause the application to behave differently.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

A unit test approach for database schema evolution

Grolinger

Capretz

2011

Information and Software Technology

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Context:The constant changes in today"s business requirements demand continuous database revisions. Hence, database structures, not unlike software applications, deteriorate during their lifespan and thus require refactoring in order to achieve a longer life span. Although unit tests support changes to application programs and refactoring, there is currently a lack of testing strategies for database schema evolution.Objective: This work examines the challenges for database schema evolution and explores the possibility of using various testing strategies to assist with schema evolution. Specifically, the work proposes a novel unit test approach for the application code that accesses databases with the objective of proactively evaluating the code against the altered database. Method: The approach was validated through the implementation of a testing framework in conjunction with a sample application and a relatively simple database schema. Although the database schema in this study was simple, it was nevertheless able to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed approach. Results: After changes in the database schema, the proposed approach found all SELECT statements as well as the majority of other statements requiring modifications in the application code. Due to its efficiency with SELECT statements, the proposed approach is expected to be more successful with database warehouse applications where SELECT statements are dominant. Conclusion:The unit test approach that accesses databases has proven to be successful in evaluating the application code against the evolved database. In particular, the approach is simple and straightforward to implement, which makes it easily adoptable in practice.

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Query-based test generation for database applications

Cited by 30 publications

References 8 publications

Coverage-Aware Test Database Reduction

Coverage-Aware Test Database Reduction

Program-input generation for testing database applications using existing database states

A unit test approach for database schema evolution

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