Automated Testing of Web Applications Using Combinatorial Strategies

• Published in: Journal of computer science and technology Vol. 32; no. 1; pp. 199 - 210
• Main Authors: Qi, Xiao-Fang, Wang, Zi-Yuan, Mao, Jun-Qiang, Wang, Peng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 2017; Springer Nature B.V; School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China%School of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications Nanjing 210023, China
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applications programs; Artificial Intelligence; Automation; Combinatorial analysis; Computer Science; Data Structures and Information Theory; Dynamics; Exploration; Fault detection; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); JavaScript; Model testing; PTC; Regular Paper; Selenium; Semantics; Software Engineering; Strategy; Studies; Theory of Computation; Topical Collection on Blood Pressure Monitoring and Management; User interface; Web应用程序; 动态页面; 客户端脚本; 测试工具; 测试模型; 测试算法; 自动化测试; web application; automated testing; combinatorial testing
• ISSN: 1000-9000; 1860-4749
• DOI: 10.1007/s11390-017-1699-x

Recently, testing techniques based on dynamic exploration, which try to automatically exercise every possible user interface element, have been extensively used to facilitate fully testing web applications. Most of such testing tools are however not effective in reaching dynamic pages induced by form interactions due to their emphasis on handling client-side scripting. In this paper, we present a combinatorial strategy to achieve a full form test and build an automated test model. We propose an algorithm called pairwise testing with constraints （PTC） to iraplement the strategy. Our PTC algorithm uses pairwise coverage and handles the issues of semantic constraints and illegal values. We have implemented a prototype tool ComjaxTest and conducted an empirical study on five web applications. Experimental results indicate that our PTC algorithm generates less form test cases while achieving a higher coverage of dynamic pages than the general pairwise testing algorithm. Additionally, our ComjaxTest generates a relatively complete test model and then detects more faults in a reasonable amount of time, as compared with other existing tools based on dynamic exploration.