Effective software testing with a string-constraint solver
Name
549069936-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
9.34 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
446f496cf5758a4679024d6017e2c76c
Author(s)
Kieżun, Adam
Advisor(s)
Michael D. Ernst.
Date Issued
2009
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
This dissertation presents techniques and tools for improving software reliability, by using an expressive string-constraint solver to make implementation-based testing more effective and more applicable. Concolic testing is a paradigm of implementation-based systematic software testing that combines dynamic symbolic execution with constraint-based systematic execution-path enumeration. Concolic testing is easy to use and effective in finding real errors. It is, however, limited by the expressiveness of the underlying constraint solver. Therefore, to date, concolic testing has not been successfully applied to programs with highly-structured inputs (e.g., compilers), or to Web applications. This dissertation shows that the effectiveness and applicability of concolic testing can be greatly improved by using an expressive and efficient string-constraint solver, i.e., a solver for constraints on string variables. We present the design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of a novel string-constraint solver. Furthermore, we show novel techniques for two important problems in concolic testing: getting past input validation in programs with highly-structured inputs, and creating inputs that demonstrate security vulnerabilities in Web applications.
Description
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-100).
Subjects
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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