Web Mutation Testing

Web application software uses new technologies that have novel methods for integration and state maintenance that amount to new control flow mechanisms and new variables coping. Although powerful, these bring in new problems that current testing techniques do not adequately test for. Testing individual web software component in isolation cannot detect interaction faults, which occur in communication among web software components. Improperly implementing and testing the communications among web software components is a major source of faults. As mutation analysis has been shown to be effective in testing traditional software, the proposed project will investigate the usefulness of applying mutation testing to web applications. In a preliminary study, several new web mutation operators were defined specifically for web interaction faults. These operators were implemented in a prototype tool for a feasibility study. The resulting paper appeared in Mutation 2010 and the experimental results evince that mutation analysis can potentially help create tests that are effective at finding web application faults. To improve web fault coverage, the initial set of web mutation operators will be extended and evaluated. Additional web mutation operators will be defined. I intend to validate the proposed technique, web mutation testing, by comparing with other existing approaches used for web application testing.