Character string predicate based automatic software test data generation

A character string is an important element in programming. A problem that needs further research is how to automatically generate software test data for character strings. This paper presents a novel approach for automatic test data generation of program paths including character string predicates, and the effectiveness of this approach is examined on a number of programs. Each element of input variable of a character string is determined by using the gradient descent technique to perform function minimization so that the test data of character string can be dynamically generated. The experimental results illustrate that this approach is effective.