research-article

Testing android apps through symbolic execution

Authors:

Nariman Mirzaei,

Corina S. Păsăreanu,

Naeem Esfahani,

Riyadh MahmoodAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Volume 37, Issue 6

Pages 1 - 5

https://doi.org/10.1145/2382756.2382798

Published: 27 November 2012 Publication History

Abstract

There is a growing need for automated testing techniques aimed at Android apps. A critical challenge is the systematic generation of test cases. One method of systematically generating test cases for Java programs is symbolic execution. But applying symbolic execution tools, such as Symbolic Pathfinder (SPF), to generate test cases for Android apps is challenged by the fact that Android apps run on the Dalvik Virtual Machine (DVM) instead of JVM. In addition, Android apps are event driven and susceptible to path-divergence due to their reliance on an application development framework. This paper provides an overview of a two-pronged approach to alleviate these issues. First, we have developed a model of Android libraries in Java Pathfinder (JPF) to enable execution of Android apps in a way that addresses the issues of incompatibility with JVM and path-divergence. Second, we have leveraged program analysis techniques to correlate events with their handlers for automatically generating Android-specific drivers that simulate all valid events.

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Cited By

Hu HWang HDong RChen XChen C(2024)Enhancing GUI Exploration Coverage of Android Apps with Deep Link-Integrated MonkeyACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/366481033:6(1-31)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3664810
Gong LLin HLiu DYang LWang HQiu JLi ZQian F(2024)Who Should We Blame for Android App Crashes? An In-Depth Study at Scale and Practical ResolutionsACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/364989520:3(1-24)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649895
Nayebi MKuznetsov KZeller ARuhe G(2024)Recommending and release planning of user-driven functionality deletion for mobile appsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-024-00430-529:4(459-480)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-024-00430-5
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Index Terms

Testing android apps through symbolic execution
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes

ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes Volume 37, Issue 6

November 2012

191 pages

ISSN:0163-5948

DOI:10.1145/2382756

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2012 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 27 November 2012

Published in SIGSOFT Volume 37, Issue 6

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Cited By

Hu HWang HDong RChen XChen C(2024)Enhancing GUI Exploration Coverage of Android Apps with Deep Link-Integrated MonkeyACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/366481033:6(1-31)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3664810
Gong LLin HLiu DYang LWang HQiu JLi ZQian F(2024)Who Should We Blame for Android App Crashes? An In-Depth Study at Scale and Practical ResolutionsACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/364989520:3(1-24)Online publication date: 13-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649895
Nayebi MKuznetsov KZeller ARuhe G(2024)Recommending and release planning of user-driven functionality deletion for mobile appsRequirements Engineering10.1007/s00766-024-00430-529:4(459-480)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-024-00430-5
Lin JSalehnamadi NMalek S(2023)Route: Roads Not Taken in UI TestingACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/357185132:3(1-25)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3571851
Nayebi MKuznetsov KZeller ARuhe G(2023)User Driven Functionality Deletion for Mobile Apps2023 IEEE 31st International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE)10.1109/RE57278.2023.00011(6-16)Online publication date: Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/RE57278.2023.00011
Bose PDas DVasan SMariani SGrishchenko IContinella ABianchi AKruegel CVigna GGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)Columbus: Android App Testing through Systematic Callback ExplorationProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00121(1381-1392)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00121
Li X(2023)GUI Testing for Android Applications: A Survey2023 7th International Conference on Computer, Software and Modeling (ICCSM)10.1109/ICCSM60247.2023.00010(6-10)Online publication date: 21-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSM60247.2023.00010
Deiner AFeldmeier PFraser GSchweikl SWang W(2023)Automated test generation for Scratch programsEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-022-10255-x28:3Online publication date: 13-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10664-022-10255-x
Katoch SGarg V(2023)Security Analysis on Android Application Through Penetration TestingProceedings of Fourth Doctoral Symposium on Computational Intelligence10.1007/978-981-99-3716-5_20(221-234)Online publication date: 17-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3716-5_20
Liu CWang HLiu TGu DMa YWang HXiao XDwyer MDamian DZeller A(2022)ProMalProceedings of the 44th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3510003.3510037(1755-1767)Online publication date: 21-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510003.3510037
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