Evaluating the effectiveness of test coverage criteria using mutation analysis : An evaluation of test coverage criteria in C#

• Main Author: Johansson, Erik
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Högskolan i Skövde, Institutionen för informationsteknologi 2016
• Subjects: software testing; coverage criteria; mutation analysis; test coverage; Computer Sciences; Datavetenskap (datalogi)
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-12597

Test coverage criteria introduces metrics to measure the adequacy of a test suite as well as defined rules for performing software testing. This makes it possibly to formally define requirements for testing in various industries where software quality is essential, such as in aviation. This bachelor thesis aims to study the effectiveness of 11 different coverage criteria in two ways. Firstly how effective they are at finding faults and secondly their cost effectiveness. Test cases were created for each individual criteria for three different programs. The effectiveness of these test cases was then measured using mutation analysis. The results revealed that the scale of the experiment was too small to truly draw any conclusions regarding effectiveness. It was however shown that due to the “test noise” effect, the effectiveness of the test criteria can differ notably. It was also shown that test coverage criteria alone may not be sufficient in order to perform efficient testing.