THE AETG SYSTEM - AN APPROACH TO TESTING BASED ON COMBINATORIAL DESIGN

This paper describes a new approach to testing that uses combinatorial designs to generate tests that cover the pairwise, triple, or n-way c ombinations of a system's test parameters. These are the parameters th at determine the system's test scenarios. Examples are system configur ation parameters, user inputs and other external events. We implemente d this new method in the AETG system. The AETG system uses new combina torial algorithms to generate test sets that cover ail valid n-way par ameter combinations. The size of an AETG test set grows logarithmicall y in the number of test parameters. This allows testers to define test models with dozens of parameters. The AETG system is used in a variet y of applications for unit, system, and interoperability testing. It h as generated both high-level test plans and detailed test cases. In se veral applications, it greatly reduced the cost of test plan developme nt.