A Review of Covering Arrays and Their Application to Software Testing

Problem statement: As a complex logic system, software may suffer from different source of faults. Those faults can be avoided by applying different testing processes. It appears recently that the interaction among the system factors represents a common source of faults. Software function properly, all input factors and their interactions of the software need to be tested i.e., exhaustive testing. Random testing, in another hand, doesn’t guarantee the coverage of all factors interaction. Approach: Covering Arrays (CAs) are mathematical objects used as platform or structure to represent the interactions of factors for a given system. The uses of CAs become important to reduce the test cases by covering all t-interactions of the system factors at least one time. Results: This study focuses exclusively on the applications of the CAs in software interaction testing. We provide an overview of CAs notations, types and construction methods. Conclusion: We reviewed the recent applications of CAs to software testing and discuss the future possible directions of the research. The research in this area seems to be an active research direction for the coming years.