Automated Test Data Generation Applying Heuristic Approaches-A Survey

摘要

Software testing is a systematic approach to identify the presence of errors in the developed software Pressman (Software Engineering A Practitioners Approach, Mc Graw Hill International Edition, 2010) [1], Beizer, Software Testing Techniques, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, New York, 1990) [2], Beizer (Black Box Testing: Techniques for Functional Testing of Software and Systems, Wiley 1995) [3]. In this paper, we explore and present the challenges in software testing and how software testing techniques evolved over the period of time. Further software testing is tedious, time-consuming, cost-ineffective and does not guarantee reliability. Automation of software testing has been an area of most research in the field. Test cases play a vital role in achieving effective testing target, but generating effective test cases is equally challenging task. Heuristic approaches have gained the attention in different fields of computer science. In this paper, we discuss the need of automation of test data generation and heuristic algorithms or techniques to implement the same. We present an extensive survey of the work done in the related field by researchers and their results.