Abstract
Covering arrays are combinatorial structures, that can be considered generalizations of orthogonal arrays and find application in the field of automated software testing amongst others. The construction of covering arrays is a highly researched topic, with existing works focusing on heuristic, metaheuristic and combinatorial algorithms to successfully construct covering arrays with a small number of rows. In this paper, we introduce the IPO-Q algorithm which combines a recently introduced quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm with the widely used in-parameter order (IPO) strategy for covering array generation. We implemented different versions of this algorithm and evaluate them, by means of selected covering array instances, against each other and against an algorithm implementing the IPO strategy.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Colbourn, C.J.: Covering Array Tables for t = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. http://www.public.asu.edu/~ccolbou/src/tabby/catable.html. Accessed 18 Sept 2019
Colbourn, C.J., Dinitz, J.H.: Handbook of Combinatorial Designs. CRC Press, Boca Raton (2006)
Ghandehari, L.S.G., Bourazjany, M.N., Lei, Y., Kacker, R.N., Kuhn, D.R.: Applying combinatorial testing to the siemens suite. In: 2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops, pp. 362–371, March 2013
Kampel, L., Simos, D.E.: A survey on the state of the art of complexity problems for covering arrays. Theor. Comput. Sci. 800, 107–124 (2019)
Kleine, K., Simos, D.E.: An efficient design and implementation of the in-parameter-order algorithm. Math. Comput. Sci. 12(1), 51–67 (2018)
Kuhn, D., Kacker, R., Lei, Y.: Introduction to Combinatorial Testing. Chapman & Hall/CRC Innovations in Software Engineering and Software Development Series. Taylor & Francis, London (2013)
Lei, Y., Kacker, R., Kuhn, D.R., Okun, V., Lawrence, J.: IPOG: a general strategy for T-way software testing. In: 14th Annual IEEE International Conference and Workshops on the Engineering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS 2007), pp. 549–556, March 2007
Lei, Y., Kacker, R., Kuhn, D.R., Okun, V., Lawrence, J.: IPOG/IPOG-D: efficient test generation for multi-way combinatorial testing. Softw. Test. Verif. Reliab. 18(3), 125–148 (2008)
Lei, Y., Tai, K.C.: In-parameter-order: a test generation strategy for pairwise testing. In: Proceedings Third IEEE International High-Assurance Systems Engineering Symposium (Cat. No. 98EX231), pp. 254–261, November 1998
Wagner, M., Kleine, K., Simos, D.E., Kuhn, R., Kacker, R.: CAgen: a fast combinatorial test generation tool with support for constraints and higher-index arrays. In: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW) (to appear)
NIST: Covering arrays generated by IPOG-F. National Institute of Standards and Technology. https://math.nist.gov/coveringarrays/ipof/ipof-results.html. Accessed 18 Sept 2019
Smith, R., et al.: Applying combinatorial testing to large-scale data processing at adobe. In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (ICSTW), pp. 190–193, April 2019
Torres-Jimenez, J., Izquierdo-Marquez, I., Avila-George, H.: Methods to construct uniform covering arrays. IEEE Access 7, 42774–42797 (2019)
Torres-Jimenez, J., Rodriguez-Tello, E.: New bounds for binary covering arrays using simulated annealing. Inf. Sci. 185(1), 137–152 (2012)
Wagner, M., Kampel, L., Simos, D.E.: Quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithms for covering arrays of arbitrary strength. In: Kotsireas, I., Pardalos, P., Parsopoulos, K.E., Souravlias, D., Tsokas, A. (eds.) SEA 2019. LNCS, vol. 11544, pp. 300–316. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34029-2_20
Yu, L., Lei, Y., Kacker, R.N., Kuhn, D.R.: ACTS: a combinatorial test generation tool. In: 2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, pp. 370–375, March 2013
Acknowledgements
This research was carried out partly in the context of the Austrian COMET K1 program and publicly funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Vienna Business Agency (WAW).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wagner, M., Kampel, L., Simos, D.E. (2020). IPO-Q: A Quantum-Inspired Approach to the IPO Strategy Used in CA Generation. In: Slamanig, D., Tsigaridas, E., Zafeirakopoulos, Z. (eds) Mathematical Aspects of Computer and Information Sciences. MACIS 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11989. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43120-4_24
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43120-4_24
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43119-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43120-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)