A density-based greedy algorithm for higher strength covering arrays

• Published in: Software testing, verification & reliability Vol. 19; no. 1; pp. 37 - 53
• Main Authors: Bryce, Renée C., Colbourn, Charles J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.03.2009
• Subjects: covering arrays; greedy algorithm; mixed-level covering arrays; software interaction testing; t-way interaction coverage
• ISSN: 0960-0833; 1099-1689
• DOI: 10.1002/stvr.393

Algorithmic construction of software interaction test suites has focussed on pairwise coverage; less is known about the efficient construction of test suites for t‐way interactions with t≥3. This study extends an efficient density‐based algorithm for pairwise coverage to generate t‐way interaction test suites and shows that it guarantees a logarithmic upper bound on the size of the test suites as a function of the number of factors. To complement this theoretical guarantee, an implementation is outlined and some practical improvements are made. Computational comparisons with other published methods are reported. Many of the results improve upon those in the literature. However, limitations on the ability of one‐test‐at‐a‐time algorithms are also identified. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.