Control Flow Testing

Software Testing and QA Theory and Practice (Chapter 4: Control Flow Testing)

Naik & Tripathy

Outline of the Chapter

Basic Idea Outline of Control Flow Testing Control Flow Graph Paths in a Control Flow Graph Path Selection Criteria Generating Test Input Containing Infeasible Paths Summary

Software Testing and QA Theory and Practice (Chapter 4: Control Flow Testing)

Naik & Tripathy

Basic Idea

Two kinds of basic program statements:

Assignment statements (Ex. x = 2*y; ) Conditional statements (Ex. if(), for(), while(), )

Control flow
Successive execution of program statements is viewed as flow of control. Conditional statements alter the default flow.

Program path
A program path is a sequence of statements from entry to exit. There can be a large number of paths in a program. There is an (input, expected output) pair for each path. Executing a path requires invoking the program unit with the right test input. Paths are chosen by using the concepts of path selection criteria.

Tools: Automatically generate test inputs from program paths.

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Outline of Control Flow Testing

Figure 4.1: The process of generating test input data for control flow testing.
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Outline of Control Flow Testing

Inputs to the test generation process

Source code Path selection criteria: statement, branch,

Generation of control flow graph (CFG)

A CFG is a graphical representation of a program unit. Compilers are modified to produce CFGs. (You can draw one by hand.)

Selection of paths
Enough entry/exit paths are selected to satisfy path selection criteria.

Generation of test input data

Two kinds of paths Executable path: There exists input so that the path is executed. Infeasible path: There is no input to execute the path. Solve the path conditions to produce test input for each path.

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Control Flow Graph

Symbols in a CFG

Figure 4.2: Symbols in a control flow graph

Software Testing and QA Theory and Practice (Chapter 4: Control Flow Testing)

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Control Flow Graph

Example code: openfiles()

FILE *fptr1, *fptr2, *fptr3; /* These are global variables. */ int openfiles(){ /* This function tries to open files "file1", "file2", and "file3" for read access, and returns the number of files successfully opened. The file pointers of the opened files are put in the global variables. */ int i = 0; if( ((( fptr1 = fopen("file1", "r")) != NULL) && (i++) && (0)) || ((( fptr2 = fopen("file2", "r")) != NULL) && (i++) && (0)) || ((( fptr3 = fopen("file3", "r")) != NULL) && (i++)) ); return(i); } Figure 4.3: A function to open three files.
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Control Flow Graph

Figure 4.4: A high-level CFG representation of openfiles().

Software Testing and QA Theory and Practice (Chapter 4: Control Flow Testing)

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Control Flow Graph

Figure 4.5: A detailed CFG representation of openfiles().

Software Testing and QA Theory and Practice (Chapter 4: Control Flow Testing) Naik & Tripathy

Control Flow Graph

Example code: ReturnAverage()

public static double ReturnAverage(int value[], int AS, int MIN, int MAX){ /* Function: ReturnAverage Computes the average of all those numbers in the input array in the positive range [MIN, MAX]. The maximum size of the array is AS. But, the array size could be smaller than AS in which case the end of input is represented by -999. */ int i, ti, tv, sum; double av; i = 0; ti = 0; tv = 0; sum = 0; while (ti < AS && value[i] != -999) { ti++; if (value[i] >= MIN && value[i] <= MAX) { tv++; sum = sum + value[i]; } i++; } if (tv > 0) av = (double)sum/tv; else av = (double) -999; return (av); }

Figure 4.6: A function to compute the average of selected integers in an array.

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Control Flow Graph

Figure 4.7: A CFG representation of ReturnAverage().

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Paths in a Control Flow Graph

A few paths in Figure 4.7. (Table 4.1)

Path 1: 1-2-3(F)-10(T)-12-13 Path 2: 1-2-3(F)-10(F)-11-13 Path 3: 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(T)-8-9-3(F)-10(T)-12-13 Path 4: 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6-7(T)-8-9-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(T)-8-9-3(F)-10(T)-1213

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Path Selection Criteria

Program paths are selectively executed. Question: What paths do I select for testing? The concept of path selection criteria is used to answer the question. Advantages of selecting paths based on defined criteria:
Ensure that all program constructs are executed at least once. Repeated selection of the same path is avoided. One can easily identify what features have been tested and what not.

Path selection criteria

Select all paths. Select paths to achieve complete statement coverage. Select paths to achieve complete branch coverage. Select paths to achieve predicate coverage.

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Path Selection Criteria

All-path coverage criterion: Select all the paths in the program unit under consideration.
The openfiles() unit has 25+ paths.
Existence of file1 No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Existence of file2 No No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Existence of file3 No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes

Table 4.2: The input domain of openfiles() Selecting all the inputs will exercise all the program paths.
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Path Selection Criteria

Input <No, No, No> <Yes, No, No> <Yes, Yes, Yes> Path 1-2-3(F)-8-9(F)-14-15(F)-19-21 1-2-3(T)-4(F)-6-8-9(F)-14-15(F)-19-21 1-2-3(T)-4(F)-6-8-9(T)-10(T)-11-13(F)-14- 15(T) -16(T)-18-20-21

Table 4.3 Inputs and paths in openfiles()

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Path Selection Criteria

Statement coverage criterion

Statement coverage means executing individual program statements and observing the output. 100% statement coverage means all the statements have been executed at least once. Cover all assignment statements. Cover all conditional statements. Less than 100% statement coverage is unacceptable.

SCPath1 SCPath2

1-2-3(F)-10(F)-11-13 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(T)-8-9-3(F)-10(T)-12-13

Table 4.4: Paths for statement coverage of the CFG of Figure 4.7.

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Path Selection Criteria

Branch coverage criterion

A branch is an outgoing edge from a node in a CFG. A condition node has two outgoing branches corresponding to the True and False values of the condition. Covering a branch means executing a path that contains the branch. 100% branch coverage means selecting a set of paths such that each branch is included on some path.

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Path Selection Criteria

Figure 4.8: The dotted arrows represent the branches not covered by the statement covering in Table 4.4.
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Path Selection Criteria

Branch coverage criterion

A branch is an outgoing branch (edge) from a node in a CFG. A condition node has two outgoing branches corresponding to the True and False values of the condition. Covering a branch means executing a path that contains the branch. 100% branch coverage means selecting a set of paths such that each branch is included on some path.

BCPath 1 BCPath 2 BCPath 3 BCPath 4 BCPath 5

1-2-3(F)-10(F)-11-13 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(T)-8-9-3(F)-10(T)-12-13 1-2-3(T)-4(F)-10(F)-11-13 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(F)-9-3(F)-10(F)-11-13 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(F)-9-3(F)-10(F)-11-13

Table 4.5: Paths for branch coverage of the flow graph of Figure 4.7.

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Path Selection Criteria

Predicate coverage criterion

If all possible combinations of truth values of the conditions affecting a path have been explored under some tests, then we say that predicate coverage has been achieved.

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Path Selection Criteria

Figure 4.9: Partial control flow graph with (a) OR operation and (b) AND operation.
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Generating Test Input

Having identified a path, a key question is how to make the path execute, if possible.
Generate input data that satisfy all the conditions on the path.

Key concepts in generating test input data

Input vector Predicate Path condition Predicate interpretation Path predicate expression Generating test input from path predicate expression

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Generating Test Input

Input vector
An input vector is a collection of all data entities read by the routine whose values must be fixed prior to entering the routine. Members of an input vector can be as follows. Input arguments to the routine Global variables and constants Files Contents of registers (in Assembly language programming) Network connections Timers Example: An input vector for openfiles() consists of individual presence or absence of the files files1, file2, and file3. Example: The input vector of ReturnAverega() shown in Figure 4.6 is <value[], AS, MIN, MAX>.

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Generating Test Input

Predicate
A predicate is a logical function evaluated at a decision point. Example: ti < AS is a predicate in node 3 of Figure 4.7. Example: The construct OB is a predicate in node 5 in Figure 4.9.

Path predicate
A path predicate is the set of predicates associated with a path. Figure 4.10: An example path from Fig. 4.7: 1-2-3(T)-4(T)-5-6(T)-7(T)-8-9-3(F)-10(T)-12-13. Figure 4.11: The path predicate for the path shown in Figure 4.10.

ti < AS True value[i] != -999 True value[i] >= MIN True value[i] <= MAX True ti < AS False tv > 0 True
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Generating Test Input

Predicate interpretation
A path predicate may contain local variables. Example: <i, ti, tv> in Figure 4.11 are local variables. Local variables play no role in selecting inputs that force a path to execute. Local variables can be eliminated by a process called symbolic execution. Predicate interpretation is defined as the process of
symbolically substituting operations along a path in order to express the predicate solely in terms of the input vector and a constant vector.

A predicate may have different interpretations depending on how control reaches the predicate.

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Generating Test Input

Path predicate expression

An interpreted path predicate is called a path predicate expression. A path predicate expression has the following attributes. It is void of local variables. It is a set of constraints in terms of the input vector, and, maybe, constants. Path forcing inputs can be generated by solving the constraints. If a path predicate expression has no solution, the path is infeasible. Figure 4.13: Path predicate expression for the path shown in Figure 4.10.

0 < AS True (1) value[0] != -999 True (2) value[0] >= MIN True (3) value[0] <= MAX True (4) 1 < AS False (5) 1>0 True (6)
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Generating Test Input

Path predicate expression

An example of infeasible path Figure 4.14: Another example of path from Figure 4.7. 1-2-3(T)-4(F)-10(T)-12-13 Figure 4.15: Path predicate expression for the path shown in Figure 4.14.

0 < AS True (1) value[0] != -999 True (2) 0>0 True (3)

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Generating Test Input

Generating input data from a path predicate expression

Consider the path predicate expression of Figure 4.13 (reproduced below.)
0 < AS True (1) True True True False (6) (2) (3) (4) (5) value[0] != -999 value[0] >= MIN value[0] <= MAX 1 < AS 1>0 True

One can solve the above equations to obtain the following test input data
AS MIN MAX Value[0] = = = = 1 25 35 30

Note: The above set is not unique.

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Containing Infeasible Paths

A program unit may contain a large number of paths.

Path selection becomes a problem. Some selected paths may be infeasible. Apply a path selection strategy: Select as many short paths as possible. Choose longer paths. There are efforts to write code with fewer/no infeasible paths.

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Summary

Control flow is a fundamental concept in program execution. A program path is an instance of execution of a program unit. Select a set of paths by considering path selection criteria.
Statement coverage Branch coverage Predicate coverage All paths

From source code, derive a CFG (compilers are modified for this.) Select paths from a CFG based on path selection criteria. Extract path predicates from each path. Solve the path predicate expression to generate test input data. There are two kinds of paths.
feasible infeasible
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