Article

DART: directed automated random testing

Authors:

Patrice Godefroid,

Koushik SenAuthors Info & Claims

PLDI '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGPLAN conference on Programming language design and implementation

Pages 213 - 223

https://doi.org/10.1145/1065010.1065036

Published: 12 June 2005 Publication History

Abstract

We present a new tool, named DART, for automatically testing software that combines three main techniques: (1) automated extraction of the interface of a program with its external environment using static source-code parsing; (2) automatic generation of a test driver for this interface that performs random testing to simulate the most general environment the program can operate in; and (3) dynamic analysis of how the program behaves under random testing and automatic generation of new test inputs to direct systematically the execution along alternative program paths. Together, these three techniques constitute Directed Automated Random Testing, or DART for short. The main strength of DART is thus that testing can be performed completely automatically on any program that compiles -- there is no need to write any test driver or harness code. During testing, DART detects standard errors such as program crashes, assertion violations, and non-termination. Preliminary experiments to unit test several examples of C programs are very encouraging.

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DART: directed automated random testing

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cover image ACM Conferences

PLDI '05: Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGPLAN conference on Programming language design and implementation

June 2005

338 pages

ISBN:1595930566

DOI:10.1145/1065010

General Chair:
Vivek Sarkar
IBM Research
,
Program Chair:
Mary Hall
USC/ISI

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 40, Issue 6
Proceedings of the 2005 ACM SIGPLAN conference on Programming language design and implementation
June 2005
325 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1064978
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2005 ACM.

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Published: 12 June 2005

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