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Algebraic program testing

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Summary

An approach to the study of program testing is introduced in which program testing is treated as a special kind of equivalence problem. In this approach, classes of programs P * and associated classes of test sets T * are defined which have the property that if two programs P and Q in P * agree on a set of tests from T *, then P and Q are computationally equivalent. The properties of a class P * and the associated class T * can be thought of as defining a set of assumptions about a hypothetical correct version Q of a program P in P *. If the assumptions are valid then it is possible to prove the correctness of P by testing. The main result of the paper is an equivalence theorem for classes of programs which carry out sequences of computations involving the elements of arrays.

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Author notes

  1. William E. Howden

    Present address: Department of Applied Physics and Information Science, University of California, 92093, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

    William E. Howden

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  1. William E. Howden
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Additional information

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation under grant No. MCS 76-03295

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Howden, W.E. Algebraic program testing. Acta Informatica 10, 53–66 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00260923

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00260923

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