A pointcut-based coverage analysis approach for aspect-oriented programs

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a promising technology that supports separation of crosscutting concerns (i.e., functionality that tends to be tangled with, and scattered through the rest of the system). In AOP, a method-like construct named advice is applied to join points in the system through a special construct named pointcut. This mechanism supports the modularization of crosscutting behavior; however, since the added interactions are not explicit in the source code, it is hard to ensure their correctness. To tackle this problem, this paper presents a rigorous coverage analysis approach to ensure exercising the logic of each advice - statements, branches, and def-use pairs - at each affected join point. To make this analysis possible, a structural model based on Java bytecode - called PointCut-based Del-Use Graph (PCDU) - is proposed, along with three integration testing criteria. Theoretical, empirical, and exploratory studies involving 12 aspect-oriented programs and several fault examples present evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Improving data perturbation testing techniques for Web services

The widespread use of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) and Web services in commercial software requires the adoption of development techniques to ensure the quality of Web services. Testing techniques and tools concern quality and play a critical role in accomplishing quality of SOA based systems. Existing techniques and tools for traditional systems are not appropriate to these new systems, making the development of Web services testing techniques and tools required. This article presents new testing techniques to automatically generate a set of test cases and data for Web services. The techniques presented here explore data perturbation of Web services messages upon data types, integrity and consistency. To support these techniques, a tool (GenAutoWS) was developed and applied to real problems. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Change of school in early adolescence and adverse obesity-related dietary behavior: a longitudinal cohort study, Victoria, Australia, 2013-2014

INTRODUCTION: Environments that facilitate energy-dense, nutrient-poor diets are associated with childhood obesity. We examined the effect of a change of school environment on the prevalence of obesity and related dietary behavior in early adolescence. METHODS: Fifteen schools in Victoria, Australia, were recruited at random from the bottom 2 strata of a 5-level socioeconomic scale. In 9 schools, students in grade 6 primary school transitioned to different schools for grade 7 secondary school, whereas in 6 schools, students remained in the same school from grade 6 to grade 7. Time 1 measures were collected from students (N = 245) in grade 6 (aged 11-13 y). Time 2 data were collected from 243 (99%) of the original cohort in grade 7. Data collected were dietary recall self-reported by students via questionnaire, measured height and weight of students, and aspects of the school food environment via school staff survey. Comparative and mixed model regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Of 243 students, 63% (n = 152) changed schools from time 1 to time 2, with no significant difference in weight status. Students who changed schools reported an increase in purchases of after-school snack food, greater sweetened beverage intake, fewer fruit-and-vegetable classroom breaks, and less encouragement for healthy eating compared with students who remained in the same school. School staff surveys showed that more primary than secondary schools had written healthy canteen policies and fewer days of canteen or food services operation. CONCLUSION: A change of school environment has negative effects on children's obesity-related dietary behavior. Consistent policy is needed across school types to support healthy eating in school environments.

A preliminary survey of factors affecting software testers

Most software testing research has focused on the development of systematic, standardised, and automated testing methodologies and tools. The abilities and expertise needed to apply such techniques and tools - such as personality traits, education, and experience - have attracted a comparatively small amount of research attention. However, the limited research in the area to date provides some indication that the human traits of software testers are important for effective testing. This paper presents the opinions of software testers themselves, collected through an online survey, on the importance of a variety of factors that influence effective testing, including testing-specific training, experience, skills, and human qualities like dedication and general intelligence. The survey responses strongly suggest that while testing tools and training are important, human factors were similarly considered highly important. Domain knowledge, experience, intelligence, and dedication, amongst other traits, were considered crucial for a software tester to be effective. As such, while systematic methodologies are important, the individual most clearly does matter in software testing. The results of our research have implications for education, recruitment, training and management of software testers.

An empirical study to review and revise job responsibilities of software testers

The broad domain of software testing includes different job responsibilities such as creating test plans, devising and running a variety of tests, documenting results, to liaising between different development teams. In this paper, we attempt to collate a list of software testing job responsibilities by applying three different social research methodologies to collect information from different sources. We found that 'test' specific responsibilities are divided into several unit tasks including test suite generation, execution of test plans, and so on. We also found that along with test specific responsibilities, software testers must perform a number of other tasks common to other IT professionals in order to carry out their roles. © 2014 IEEE.

An empirical investigation of personality traits of software testers

Software testing is the process of an execution based investigation of some aspects of the software's quality. The efficiency of the process depends on the methods and technologies used, but crucially also on the human testers. Software testers typically attempt to anticipate and expose ways software may be defective, a fundamentally different task set to those of other software development practitioners. This raises the question of whether the personality of software testers may be different to other people involved in software development. To test this hypothesis, we collected personality profiles using the big five factor model of around 200 software development practitioners. Analysis of this data indicates that software testers are significantly higher on the conscientiousness factor than other software development practitioners, while other factors remain broadly consistent.

Uma abordagem sistemática para implementação, gerenciamento e customização de testes de linhas de produto de software

Through the adoption of the software product line (SPL) approach, several benefits are achieved when compared to the conventional development processes that are based on creating a single software system at a time. The process of developing a SPL differs from traditional software construction, since it has two essential phases: the domain engineering - when common and variables elements of the SPL are defined and implemented; and the application engineering - when one or more applications (specific products) are derived from the reuse of artifacts created in the domain engineering. The test activity is also fundamental and aims to detect defects in the artifacts produced in SPL development. However, the characteristics of an SPL bring new challenges to this activity that must be considered. Several approaches have been recently proposed for the testing process of product lines, but they have been shown limited and have only provided general guidelines. In addition, there is also a lack of tools to support the variability management and customization of automated case tests for SPLs. In this context, this dissertation has the goal of proposing a systematic approach to software product line testing. The approach offers: (i) automated SPL test strategies to be applied in the domain and application engineering, (ii) explicit guidelines to support the implementation and reuse of automated test cases at the unit, integration and system levels in domain and application engineering; and (iii) tooling support for automating the variability management and customization of test cases. The approach is evaluated through its application in a software product line for web systems. The results of this work have shown that the proposed approach can help the developers to deal with the challenges imposed by the characteristics of SPLs during the testing process

Beta: uma ferramenta para geração de testes de unidade a partir de especificações B

Formal methods and software testing are tools to obtain and control software quality. When used together, they provide mechanisms for software specification, verification and error detection. Even though formal methods allow software to be mathematically verified, they are not enough to assure that a system is free of faults, thus, software testing techniques are necessary to complement the process of verification and validation of a system. Model Based Testing techniques allow tests to be generated from other software artifacts such as specifications and abstract models. Using formal specifications as basis for test creation, we can generate better quality tests, because these specifications are usually precise and free of ambiguity. Fernanda Souza (2009) proposed a method to define test cases from B Method specifications. This method used information from the machine s invariant and the operation s precondition to define positive and negative test cases for an operation, using equivalent class partitioning and boundary value analysis based techniques. However, the method proposed in 2009 was not automated and had conceptual deficiencies like, for instance, it did not fit in a well defined coverage criteria classification. We started our work with a case study that applied the method in an example of B specification from the industry. Based in this case study we ve obtained subsidies to improve it. In our work we evolved the proposed method, rewriting it and adding characteristics to make it compatible with a test classification used by the community. We also improved the method to support specifications structured in different components, to use information from the operation s behavior on the test case generation process and to use new coverage criterias. Besides, we have implemented a tool to automate the method and we have submitted it to more complex case studies