Metamorphic Relations Prioritization And Selection Based on Test Adequacy Criteria

Metamorphic testing is the mainstream technique to solve oracle problems, and the effectiveness of metamorphic relations directly affects the testing cost. Most existing studies are summaries of engineering experience and lack theoretical discussions. A distance-based definition of metamorphic relation validity is provided, and a quantitative relationship model based on distance and test coverage is established to guide metamorphic relation selection and ranking. Experiments on four procedures and nearly 50 metamorphic relations show that, compared with random, coverage-based, and distance-based methods, this method has higher defect detection capability and can improve test effectiveness under the condition of using the same number of metamorphic relations. The number of metamorphic relations used in this method is lower than the number of programs under test and the cost of testing is lower while meeting the same defect detection level.