MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services

The use of web services has been growing significantly, with increasingly large numbers of applications being implemented through the web. A difficulty associated with this development is the quality assurance of these services, specifically the challenges encountered when testing the applications -...

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Main Authors: Sun, Chang ai, Wang, Guan, Wen, Qing, Towey, Dave, Chen, Tsong Yueh
Format: Article
Published: Inderscience 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47282/
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author Sun, Chang ai
Wang, Guan
Wen, Qing
Towey, Dave
Chen, Tsong Yueh
author_facet Sun, Chang ai
Wang, Guan
Wen, Qing
Towey, Dave
Chen, Tsong Yueh
author_sort Sun, Chang ai
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The use of web services has been growing significantly, with increasingly large numbers of applications being implemented through the web. A difficulty associated with this development is the quality assurance of these services, specifically the challenges encountered when testing the applications - amongst other things, testers may not have access to the source code, and the correctness of the output may not be easily ascertained (known as the oracle problem). Metamorphic testing (MT) has been introduced as a technique to alleviate the oracle problem. MT makes use of properties of the software under test, known as metamorphic relations, and checks whether or not these relations are violated. Since MT does not require source code to generate the metamorphic relations, it is suitable for testing web services-based applications. We have designed an XML-based language representation to facilitate the formalisation of metamorphic relations, the generation of (follow-up) test cases, and the verification of the test results. Based on this, we have also developed a tool to support the automation of MT for web service applications. This tool has been used in an experiment to test web services, the evaluation of which is reported in this paper.
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spelling nottingham-472822020-05-04T17:37:17Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47282/ MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services Sun, Chang ai Wang, Guan Wen, Qing Towey, Dave Chen, Tsong Yueh The use of web services has been growing significantly, with increasingly large numbers of applications being implemented through the web. A difficulty associated with this development is the quality assurance of these services, specifically the challenges encountered when testing the applications - amongst other things, testers may not have access to the source code, and the correctness of the output may not be easily ascertained (known as the oracle problem). Metamorphic testing (MT) has been introduced as a technique to alleviate the oracle problem. MT makes use of properties of the software under test, known as metamorphic relations, and checks whether or not these relations are violated. Since MT does not require source code to generate the metamorphic relations, it is suitable for testing web services-based applications. We have designed an XML-based language representation to facilitate the formalisation of metamorphic relations, the generation of (follow-up) test cases, and the verification of the test results. Based on this, we have also developed a tool to support the automation of MT for web service applications. This tool has been used in an experiment to test web services, the evaluation of which is reported in this paper. Inderscience 2016-02-12 Article PeerReviewed Sun, Chang ai, Wang, Guan, Wen, Qing, Towey, Dave and Chen, Tsong Yueh (2016) MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services. International Journal of High Performance Computing and Networking, 9 (1/2). pp. 104-115. ISSN 1740-0570 web services; test oracle; metamorphic testing; automatic testing; quality assurance; QA; XML; metamorphic relations; web service testing; software testing http://www.inderscience.com/storage/f611249758103211.pdf doi:10.1504/IJHPCN.2016.074663 doi:10.1504/IJHPCN.2016.074663
spellingShingle web services; test oracle; metamorphic testing; automatic testing; quality assurance; QA; XML; metamorphic relations; web service testing; software testing
Sun, Chang ai
Wang, Guan
Wen, Qing
Towey, Dave
Chen, Tsong Yueh
MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title_full MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title_fullStr MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title_full_unstemmed MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title_short MT4WS: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
title_sort mt4ws: an automated metamorphic testing system for web services
topic web services; test oracle; metamorphic testing; automatic testing; quality assurance; QA; XML; metamorphic relations; web service testing; software testing
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47282/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47282/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/47282/