Pairwise Coverage-Based Testing with Selected Elements in a Query for Database Applications

Abstract

Because program behaviors of database applications depend on the data used, code coverages do not effectively test database applications. Additionally, test coverages for database applications that focus on predicates in Structured Query Language (SQL) queries are not useful if the necessary predicates are omitted. In this paper, we present two new database applications using Plain Pairwise Coverage (PPC) and Selected Pairwise Coverage (SPC) for SQL queries called Plain Pairwise Coverage Testing (PPCT) and Selected Pairwise Coverage Testing (SPCT), respectively. These coverages are based on pairwise testing coverage, which employs selected elements in the SQL SELECT query as parameters. We also implement a coverage calculation tool and conduct case studies on two open source software systems. PPCT and SPCT can detect many faults, which are not detected by existing test methods based on predicates in the query. Furthermore, the case study suggests that SPCT can detect faults more efficiently than PPCT and the costs of SPCT can be further reduced by ignoring records filtered out by the conditions of the query.