Building coverage metrics and testing strategies for mobile testing via view enumeration

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12013775-B2
Application number	US-201514964210-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 9, 2015
Priority date	Dec 9, 2015
Publication date	Jun 18, 2024
Grant date	Jun 18, 2024

Abstract

A method and method for testing an application includes performing a static analysis of metadata of coding of an application, using a test application program executed by a processor on a computer. Available user interface states are simulated based on the static analysis. A configuration file of the application is accessed and parsed to enumerate states possible for the application. A coverage metric is calculated for the application based on a number of states reached by the simulating and a number of states possible.

First claim

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is as follows:

1. A method of testing an application, said method comprising:
performing a static analysis of metadata of code of an application, using a test application program executed by a processor on a computer, wherein performing the static analysis includes:
simulating the application code to determine available user interface states of the application based on the static analysis of the metadata of the application code;
subsequent to the simulation, accessing and parsing, by a mobile crawler,
a configuration file of the application to enumerate states possible for the application, wherein the accessing and parsing the configuration file includes parsing and enumerating a plurality of different views from the configuration file including enumerating all views reachable by the application; and
calculating a coverage metric for the application based on a difference between a number of states reached by the simulating the available user interface states and a number of the states possible as the enumerated from the configuration file, wherein the calculating the coverage metric further includes:
comparing the number of states reached during the simulation with the number of states possible, including calculating one or more coverage values;
evaluating to determine that there are missing states;
searching for transitions into the missing states; and
automatically building strategies into unreachable states to provide outputs indicating final coverage metrics and conclusions from the building strategies to reach the unreachable states, wherein the automatically building strategies into the unreachable states includes:
determining a transition responsible for different region; and
when the views differ in a region, executing a modular decomposition of each view into the region.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining coverage metrics for a mobile device application from the number of states reached.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising determining the transitions into the missing states, wherein the determining the transitions comprises exercising at least one stored strategy to automatically exercise the transitions to obtain additional information.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said stored strategy comprises exercising one or more of the transitions while determining whether a region of a view changes as a result of one of the transitions, and wherein the coverage values are based on a number of the plurality of views, wherein the plurality of views includes at least two distinct views that differ only in one region to indicate that an action the one is responsible for a transition is in the one region.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the coverage values are based on a number of views reached out of a total number of views, or a number of controls and inputs exercised in each of the views out of a total number of controls, further comprising based on differences between the plurality of different views, both in a rendered form and in a general form, transitioning into views that are unreachable.

6. The method of claim 1 , as implemented using one of: a service available on a network server; and a service available as a cloud service, further comprising determining the transitions into the missing states comprises exercising at least one stored strategy to automatically exercise the transitions to obtain additional information.

7. A non-transitory storage medium storing a set of computer-readable instructions of testing an application program, said set of computer-readable instructions to be executed by a processor on a computer to perform a method comprising:
performing a static analysis of metadata of code of an application, using a test application program executed by the processor on the computer;
simulating the application code to determine available user interface states of said application based on said static analysis of the metadata of the coding the application;
accessing and parsing by a mobile crawler a configuration file of said application to enumerate states possible for said application including enumerating all views possible for the application, wherein the accessing and parsing the configuration file includes parsing and enumerating a plurality of different views of the configuration file;
calculating a coverage metric for said application based on a difference between a number of states reached by said simulating of said available user interface states and a number of the states possible as enumerated from said configuration file; and
comparing the number of states reached during the simulation with the number of states possible, including calculating one or more coverage values,
wherein which possible states are missing are determined when said simulating is completed according to the metadata of the code of the application,
wherein the user interface states in a code under testing are simulated based on the static analysis of the metadata, and
when evaluation determines that there are missing states, searching for transitions into any missing states, and automatically building strategies into unreachable states to output indicating the coverage metrics.

8. The non-transitory storage medium of claim 7 , wherein said method is embodied as a module in an application testing program, and
wherein the calculating further comprises comparing the number of states reached with the number of possible states,
wherein a mobile crawler is applied for parsing the configuration file of the application and search for all possible states.

9. The non-transitory storage medium of claim 8 , wherein said application testing program is implemented using one of:
a service available on a network server; and
a service available as a cloud service,
further comprising determining transitions into missing states comprises exercising at least one stored strategy to automatically exercise transitions to obtain additional information.

10. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor; and
a memory system accessible by said processor, wherein said memory system stores a set of computer-readable instructions that permit said processor to execute a method of testing an application program, said set of computer-readable instructions comprising:
performing a static analysis of metadata of code of an application, using a test application program executed by a processor on a computer;
simulating the application code to determine available user interface states of said application based on said static analysis of the metadata of the code of the application;
accessing and parsing a configuration file of said application to enumerate states possible for said application, wherein the accessing and parsing the configuration file includes parsing and enumerating a plurality of different views of the configuration file;
calculating a coverage metric for said application based on a difference between a number of the states reached by said simulating of said available user interface states and a number of states possible as enumerated from said configuration file;
determining which possible states are missing when said simulating is completed according to the metadata of the code of application; and
comparing the number of states reached during the simulation with the number of states possible, including calculating one or more coverage values,
wherein the user interface states in a code under testing are simulated based on the static analysis of the metadata.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein said memory system comprises:
a memory device storing instruc

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Ligman Joseph William
• Pistoia Marco
• Thomas Gegi
• Tripp Omer

Classifications

• G06F11/3676 Primary

  for coverage analysis · CPC title

• G06F21/6218 Primary

  to a system of files or objects, e.g. local or distributed file system or database · CPC title