Design of test inputs and their sequences in multi-function system testing

This discussion paper addresses combinatorial models in system testing from the perspective of system usage (utilization) and corresponding examination of system functions and their groups. Thus the following aspects of multi-function system testing are under study: analysis of system requirements and revelation of atomic system functions and their relationships, analysis of system function groups (clusters), design of the most important test inputs and sequences of the test inputs. The basic combinatorial problem is: composition of the best (the most important) test input(s) for each group of atomic system functions. Additional combinatorial problems are the following: (a) design of test input sequence for a trail (chain) of function clusters, (b) design of collection of test input sequences as covering of function cluster digraph, (c) structural fusion of unit test results. Numerical and real world examples illustrate the proposed approach. Mark Sh. Levin received the M.S. degree in Radioengineering from Moscow Techn. Univ. for Communication and Informatics (1970), the M.S. degree in Mathematics from ‘Lomonosov’ Moscow State Univ. (1975), the Ph.D. degree in Systems Analysis and Combinatorial Optimization from Inst. for System Analysis of Russian Acad. of Sci. (1982). His research interests include systems engineering, decision making, combinatorial optimization, and applications. Currently Dr. Levin is with Inst. for Inform. Transmission Problems of Russian Acad. of Sci. (Moscow) as a Senior Research Scientist. He is a member of ACM, IEEE, SIAM, Int. Soc. on MCDM, Int. Soc. of Appl. Intel., and OR Society of Israel. Mark Last received his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from Tel Aviv Univ. (2000). Dr. Last is a faculty member at Dept. of Information Systems Engineering of Ben-Gurion Univ. (Israel) and affiliated as a visiting faculty at National Inst. for Systems Test and Productivity (Univ. of South Florida, USA). His research interests include information systems, knowledge discovery and data mining, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic, and software testing. He is a member of IEEE Computer Society and ACM.