Symbolic execution systems-a review

Symbolic execution is a technique that is useful in the validation of software. It may be used to aid in the generation of test data and in program proving. As software engineering becomes more concerned with the development of tools, symbolic execution will become an important item in the toolkit. This paper gives a review of symbolic execution and its applications. A minimum set of features for a symbolic execution testing system is set out. Of the 12 systems using symbolic execution only six contain these minimum features. These six systems are compared against an `ideal´ system. Based on this comparison some features for a new symbolic execution testing system are outlined