Automatic generation of database instances for white-box testing

• Published in: 25th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference. COMPSAC 2001 pp. 161 - 165
• Main Authors: Jian Zhang, Chen Xu, Cheung, S.-C.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2001
• Subjects: Application software; Automatic testing; Calculus; Computer science; Database systems; Logic; Relational databases; Software testing; System testing; Transaction databases
• ISBN: 0769513727; 9780769513720
• ISSN: 0730-3157
• DOI: 10.1109/CMPSAC.2001.960612

Testing is a critical activity for database application programs as faults if undetected could lead to unrecoverable data loss. Database application programs typically contain statements written in an imperative programming language with embedded data manipulation commands, such as SQL. However relatively little study has been made in the testing of database application programs. In particular, few testing techniques explicitly consider the inclusion of database instances in the selection of test cases and the generation of test data input. In this paper, we study the generation of database instances that respect the semantics of SQL statements embedded in a database application program. The paper also describes a supporting tool which generates a set of constraints. These constraints collectively represent a property against which the program is tested. Database instances for program testing can be derived by solving the set of constraints using existing constraint solvers.