Data fabrication based on test requirements

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016246705-A1
Application number	US-201514628317-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Feb 23, 2015
Priority date	Feb 23, 2015
Publication date	Aug 25, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method for fabricating test data, comprising using a hardware processor for: receiving a plurality of data sources; receiving a plurality of targets to be populated with the test data; obtaining a plurality of data fabrication rules; receiving a fabrication use-case having a hierarchic structure and comprising one or more tasks each associated with one or more data fabrication rules and with a set of targets; formulating at least some of the data fabrication rules as corresponding constraints; and performing the following steps for each task according to the hierarchic structure of the fabrication use-case: applying, to data sources the constraints corresponding to at least some data fabrication rules associated with said each task to receive a solution, and (b) populating the associated set of targets with the solution, to receive fabricated test data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for fabricating test data, comprising using at least one hardware processor for:
receiving a plurality of data sources; receiving a plurality of targets to be populated with the test data; obtaining a plurality of data fabrication rules; receiving a fabrication use-case having a hierarchic structure and comprising one or more tasks each associated with one or more data fabrication rules of the plurality of data fabrication rules and with a set of targets of the plurality of targets; formulating at least some of the one or more data fabrication rules as corresponding one or more constraints; and performing the following steps for each task of the one or more tasks of the fabrication use-case, according to the hierarchic structure of the fabrication use-case:
i) applying, to data sources of the plurality of data sources, the one or more constraints corresponding to at least some data fabrication rules of the one or more data fabrication rules associated with said each task, according to the hierarchic structure of the fabrication use-case, to receive a solution, and
ii) populating the associated set of targets with the solution, to receive fabricated test data for the associated set of targets.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the fabrication use-case comprises a set of use-cases hierarchically structured, and wherein each use-case of said set of use-cases which is at the bottom level of the hierarchic structure of the set of use-cases comprises at least one task of said one or more tasks.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:
each task of said one or more tasks is associated with at least one number of records of test data to be fabricated for each target of the set of targets associated with said each task, each such at least one number of records is associated in a hierarchic level of the fabrication use-case selected from the group consisting of: a fabrication use-case level, use-cases level and tasks level, and the applying of the one or more constraints on data sources to receive the solution and the populating of the associated set of targets with the solution are repeated for said each task until the total number of records associated with said each task is satisfied.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the type of at least some of said plurality of data fabrication rules is selected from the group consisting of: constraint rules, transformation rules, knowledge-base rules, programmatic rules, analytics rules and generic rules.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising using said at least one hardware processor for:
parsing and dividing generic rules of the plurality of data fabrication rules into rule components according to the types of the rule components; for each analytics rule of the plurality of data fabrication rules:
i) performing the analytics defined in said each analytics rule on at least one data source of the plurality of data sources to receive one or more distributions, and
ii) formulating the received one or more distributions as one or more constraints;
for each knowledge-base rule of the plurality of data fabrication rules, reading a knowledge-base associated with said each knowledge-base rule and formulating a constraint accordingly, wherein said plurality of data sources comprises said knowledge-base; for each programmatic rule of the plurality of data fabrication rules, executing said each programmatic rule at least once for each associated target to receive at least one value for said each associated target; and formulating constraint rules of the plurality of data fabrication rules as constraints.

6 . The method of claim 4 , wherein the performing of the steps for each task of the one or more tasks further comprises performing the following steps:
i) for each transformation rule of the plurality of data fabrication rules which is defined with respect to a data source of the plurality of data sources, applying the transformation defined by said each transformation rule on the data source, and ii) for each transformation rule of the plurality of data fabrication rules which is defined with respect to a target of the plurality of targets, applying the transformation defined by said each transformation rule on the target.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the applying of the one or more constraints on the data sources comprises formulating and solving a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) according to the one or more constraints to receive the solution.

8 . The method of claim 1 further comprising dividing the one or more constraints to unrelated constraints and performing the steps for each task in a separate manner for each one of the unrelated constraints.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the data fabrication rules are hierarchically structured.

10 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the data fabrication rules are derived from sources selected from the group consisting of: data logic, application logic and test logic.

11 . The method of claim 1 , wherein entities of targets of the plurality of targets and of sources of the plurality of sources are tagged with stereotypes, and wherein the method further comprises using said at least one hardware processor for:
receiving one or more meta-rules defined to be enforced with respect to the entities tagged with the stereotypes; and instantiating said one or more meta-rules to produce one or more data fabrication rules referring to the entities tagged with the stereotypes correspondingly.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein entities selected from the group consisting of: tables and attributes of tables are defined as one or more groups and wherein data fabrication rules of the plurality of data fabrication rules and the stereotypes may be defined with respect to the one or more groups.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more data fabrication rules are associated with said each task in a hierarchic level of the fabrication use-case selected from the group consisting of: a fabrication use-case level, use-cases level and tasks level.

14 . A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having program code embodied therewith, the program code executable by at least one hardware processor to:
receive a plurality of data sources; receive a plurality of targets to be populated with the test data; obtain a plurality of data fabrication rules; receive a fabrication use-case having a hierarchic structure and comprising one or more tasks each associated with one or more data fabrication rules of the plurality of data fabrication rules and with a set of targets of the plurality of targets; formulate at least some of the one or more data fabrication rules as corresponding one or more constraints; and perform the following steps for each task of the one or more tasks of the fabrication use-case, according to the hierarchic structure of the fabrication use-case:
i) apply, to data sources of the plurality of data sources, the one or more constraints corresponding to at least some data fabrication rules of the one or more data fabrication rules associated with said each task and with each parent task of said each task, according to the hierarchic structure of the fabrication use-case, to receive a solution, and
ii) populate the associated set of targets with the solution, to receive fabricated test data for the associated set of targets.

15 . The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the type of at least some of said plurality of data fabrication rules is selected from the group consistin

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Bitar Akram
• Blinder Oleg
• Levy Ronen
• Salman Tamer

Classifications

• G06F11/3684 Primary

  for test design, e.g. generating new test cases · CPC title

• G06F11/3698 Primary

  Environments for analysis, debugging or testing of software · CPC title

• G06F11/3672 Primary

  Test management · CPC title

• G06F11/3664

  Physics · mapped topic