Saturation-based testing of concurrent programs

Abstract

Coverage measures help to determine whether a test suite exercises a program adequately according to a testing criterion. Many existing measures, however, are defined over coverage domains that cannot be precisely calculated, rendering them of limited value in assessing the extent of testing activities. To exploit the use of such measures, we formalize saturation-based test adequacy, a form of adequacy focused on the rate at which coverage increases during test suite execution. We define a family of coverage metrics for concurrent program testing that are well-suited to saturation-based adequacy and present a study that explores their cost and effectiveness. The results of this study suggest that saturation-based testing can serve as an effective complement to traditional notions of coverage-based testing.