Scatter Search in software testing, comparison and collaboration with Estimation of Distribution Algorithms

One of the main tasks software testing includes is the generation of the test cases to be used during the test. Due to its expensive cost, the automatization of this task has become one of the key issues in the area. The field of Evolutionary Testing deals with this problem by means of metaheuristic search techniques. An Evolutionary Testing based approach to the automatic generation of test inputs is presented. The approach developed involves different possibilities of the usage of two heuristic optimization methods, namely, Scatter Search and Estimation of Distribution Algorithms. The possibilities comprise pure Scatter Search options and Scatter Search–Estimation of Distribution Algorithm collaborations. Several experiments were conducted in order to evaluate and compare the approaches presented with those in the literature. The analysis of the experimental results raises interesting conclusions, showing these alternatives as a promising option to tackle this problem.