Software Testing and Analysis for Database Applications

[Summary] [People] [Publications] [Presentations] [Software] [Subjects] [Sponsors]

PROJECT SUMMARY

Testing is essential for database applications to function correctly and with acceptable performance when deployed. In practice, it is often necessary for vendors of database application software to test their software adequately before selling or integrating their software to the database owner. However, testing database applications is very costly. In particular, it is time-consuming and challenging to generate desirable database states, an important portion of test inputs for testing database applications. However, little research has been conducted to provide scalable, effective tool support for generating database states to achieve various testing objectives. This research aims to adequately generate database states for database applications by developing various novel techniques. The research advances understanding of fundamental issues related to testing database applications and the design and implementation of practical techniques to carry out such testing. Among the broader impacts of the project includes integration of the research into education programs and enhancement of teaching and research infrastructure.

PEOPLE

Faculty

Tao Xie (Principal Investigator)

Students

Sihan Li (PhD Student)

David (Wei) Yang (PhD Student)

Kunal Taneja (NCSU PhD Student)

Collaborators

Xintao Wu (Collaborating PI at UNCC) and Kai Pan (PhD Student at UNCC)

Yi Zhang (FDA)

PUBLICATIONS

1. Kai Pan, Xintao Wu, and Tao Xie. Program-Input Generation for Testing Database Applications Using Existing Database States. Automated Software Engineering Journal, pages 1-35, July 2014. [PDF][BibTeX]
2. Kai Pan, Xintao Wu, and Tao Xie. Guided Test Generation for Database Applications via Synthesized Database Interactions. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 23(2), Article 12, March 2014. [PDF][BibTeX]
3. Kai Pan, Xintao Wu and Tao Xie. Automatic Test Generation for Mutation Testing on Database Applications. In Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Automation of Software Test (AST 2013),San Francisco, CA, May 2013. [PDF][BibTeX]
4. Kai Pan, Xintao Wu, and Tao Xie. Generating Program Inputs for Database Application Testing. In Proceedings of the 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2011), Lawrence, Kansas, pages 73-82, November 2011. [PDF][BibTeX]
5. Kunal Taneja, Mark Grechanik, Rayid Ghani, and Tao Xie. Testing Software In Age Of Data Privacy: A Balancing Act. In Proceedings of the 8th joint meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE 2011), Szeged, Hungary, pages 201-211, September 2011. [PDF][BibTeX]
6. Kai Pan, Xintao Wu, and Tao Xie. Database State Generation via Dynamic Symbolic Execution for Coverage Criteria. In Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Testing Database Systems (DBTest 2011), Athens, Greece, pages 4-9, June 2011. [PDF][BibTeX]
7. Kunal Taneja, Yi Zhang, and Tao Xie. MODA: Automated Test Generation for Database Applications via Mock Objects. In Proceedings of the 25th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE 2010), Short Paper, Antwerp, Belgium, September 2010. [PDF][BibTeX]

PRESENTATIONS

1. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China, August 2010.
2. Automated Software Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China, July 2010.
3. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Department of Computer Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, July 2010.
4. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, NY, March 2010.
5. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Keynote talk, the 2nd CREST Open Workshop Software Testing (COW), CREST Centre, King's College London , December 2009.
6. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, October 2009.
7. Automated Developer Testing: Achievements and Challenges. Invited talk, Department of Computer and Information Science, Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN, October 2009.

SUBJECTS

SPONSORS

National Science Foundation Awards CCF-1434590 (07/01/2013-08/31/2015), CCF-0915400 (09/01/2009-03/31/2014)