The Oracle Problem in Software Testing: A Survey

Testing involves examining the behaviour of a system in order to discover potential faults. Given an input for a system, the challenge of distinguishing the corresponding desired, correct behaviour from potentially incorrect behavior is called the “test oracle problem”. Test oracle automation is important to remove a current bottleneck that inhibits greater overall test automation. Without test oracle automation, the human has to determine whether observed behaviour is correct. The literature on test oracles has introduced techniques for oracle automation, including modelling, specifications, contract-driven development and metamorphic testing. When none of these is completely adequate, the final source of…

• UC
  University College London
• EA
  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

  Awards: EP/I010165/1, EP/I010386/1, EP/I010165/1, EP/I010386/1
• CR
  Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology