Pruning the Search Space in Path-Based Test Generation

Recent advances in path-based test (data) generation open the way to the systematic testing of large scale programs. However, these technologies are still suffering from two major bottlenecks: efficient constraint solving and the path explosion phenomenon. We focus in this paper on the second issue and propose three complementary heuristics geared toward lowering path explosion. All these heuristics are both easy to implement and lightweight, and each one deals with a distinct source of path explosion. We provide theoretical and experimental evidence that they can achieve a significant reduction in the search space.