Adaptive Random Testing: The ART of test case diversity

Abstract

Random testing is not only a useful testing technique in itself, but also plays a core role in many other testing methods. Hence, any significant improvement to random testing has an impact throughout the software testing community. Recently, Adaptive Random Testing (ART) was proposed as an effective alternative to random testing. This paper presents a synthesis of the most important research results related to ART. In the course of our research and through further reflection, we have realised how the techniques and concepts of ART can be applied in a much broader context, which we present here. We believe such ideas can be applied in a variety of areas of software testing, and even beyond software testing. Amongst these ideas, we particularly note the fundamental role of diversity in test case selection strategies. We hope this paper serves to provoke further discussions and investigations of these ideas. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.