STATIC ANALYSIS DRIVEN TESTING OF PEFORMANCE AND ENERGY-CONSUMPTION PROPERTIES OF SOFTWARE

Abstract

THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THIS WORK IS TO EXPLORE AND ADDRESS THE MAJOR CHALLENGES IN TESTING NON-FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES OF A SOFTWARE. SYSTEMATIC TESTING OF NON-FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES, SUCH AS PERFORMANCE OR ENERGY-CONSUMPTION, IS OFTEN MORE CHALLENGING THAN TESTING FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES BECAUSE NON-FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES NOT ONLY DEPEND ON THE INPUTS TO THE PROGRAM BUT ALSO ON THE UNDERLYING HARDWARE. ADDITIONALLY, UNLIKE FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES, NON-FUNCTIONAL PROPERTIES ARE SELDOM ANNOTATED IN THE SOFTWARE ITSELF. SUCH CHALLENGES PROVIDE THE MOTIVATION FOR THIS WORK. IN THIS WORK, WE PRESENT INSTANTIATIONS OF OUR TESTING TECHNIQUE FOR TWO SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS THAT ARE PERFORMANCE-STRESSING TEST-INPUT GENERATION FOR CACHES AND ENERGY-INEFFICIENCY REVEALING TEST-INPUT GENERATION FOR MOBILE APPS. A KEY ASPECT OF OUR AUTOMATED TESTING TECHNIQUE IS THAT THE TEST-SUITE GENERATED BY OUR FRAMEWORK DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY SPURIOUS TEST-CASES. WE ALSO PRESENT TWO FOLLOW-UP WORKS ON ENERGY-AWARE RE-F