Grammar-Based Action Selection Rules for Scriptless Testing

Scriptless testing at the GUI level involves generating test sequences on the fly. These test sequences mimic user interactions on the GUI The creation of these sequences works through action selection rules, which is most commonly based on stochastic methods. Scriptless tests are reliable because t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings (International Workshop on Automation of Software Test. Online) pp. 56 - 65
Main Authors: Hufkens, Lianne V., Ricos, Fernando Pastor, Marin, Beatriz, Vos, Tanja E. J.
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Published: ACM 15.04.2024
Subjects:
action selection
Automation
Debugging
Grammar
grammars
Graphical user interfaces
GUI testing
Reliability
scriptless testing
Software
Software testing
ISSN:2833-9061
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Abstract Scriptless testing at the GUI level involves generating test sequences on the fly. These test sequences mimic user interactions on the GUI The creation of these sequences works through action selection rules, which is most commonly based on stochastic methods. Scriptless tests are reliable because they work with the actual state of the System Under Test (SUT). However, the tests are less specific, harder to interpret, and it is difficult to test concrete use cases or workflows. We want to tackle this drawback of scriptless tests by introducing action selection rules that are easier to guide than pure stochastic methods. In this paper, a new approach based on a grammar for the action selection rules is proposed, enabling scriptless testing tools to mimic user behaviour when interacting with web applications. While grammars have been used in software testing to generate input data for test cases, the proposed approach uses grammars to specify action selection rules to generate test sequences that mimic testing strategies employed by human testers. An empirical study has been performed to evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the grammar-based action selection rules to filing web forms in comparison with random action selection rules. In the study, two SUTs were used: WebformSUT and Parabank. The average success rate for the grammar-based approach was 95.9% against random's 57.0% for WebformSUT and 99.8% against 55.7% for Parabank. For the widget interaction grammar-based had an average deviation from the ideal ratio of 0.06165 (WebformSUT) and 0.0180 (Parabank), compared random's 0.4318 (WebformSUT) and 0.7774 (Parabank). The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the grammar-based approach and the improvement in the use of resources.CCS CONCEPTS* Software and its engineering → Software testing and debugging; * Theory of computation → Grammars and context-free languages.
AbstractList Scriptless testing at the GUI level involves generating test sequences on the fly. These test sequences mimic user interactions on the GUI The creation of these sequences works through action selection rules, which is most commonly based on stochastic methods. Scriptless tests are reliable because they work with the actual state of the System Under Test (SUT). However, the tests are less specific, harder to interpret, and it is difficult to test concrete use cases or workflows. We want to tackle this drawback of scriptless tests by introducing action selection rules that are easier to guide than pure stochastic methods. In this paper, a new approach based on a grammar for the action selection rules is proposed, enabling scriptless testing tools to mimic user behaviour when interacting with web applications. While grammars have been used in software testing to generate input data for test cases, the proposed approach uses grammars to specify action selection rules to generate test sequences that mimic testing strategies employed by human testers. An empirical study has been performed to evaluate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the grammar-based action selection rules to filing web forms in comparison with random action selection rules. In the study, two SUTs were used: WebformSUT and Parabank. The average success rate for the grammar-based approach was 95.9% against random's 57.0% for WebformSUT and 99.8% against 55.7% for Parabank. For the widget interaction grammar-based had an average deviation from the ideal ratio of 0.06165 (WebformSUT) and 0.0180 (Parabank), compared random's 0.4318 (WebformSUT) and 0.7774 (Parabank). The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the grammar-based approach and the improvement in the use of resources.CCS CONCEPTS* Software and its engineering → Software testing and debugging; * Theory of computation → Grammars and context-free languages.
Author Marin, Beatriz
Hufkens, Lianne V.
Ricos, Fernando Pastor
Vos, Tanja E. J.
Author_xml – sequence: 1
  givenname: Lianne V.
  surname: Hufkens
  fullname: Hufkens, Lianne V.
  email: lianne.hufkens@ou.nl
  organization: Open Universiteit,Heerlen,the Netherlands
– sequence: 2
  givenname: Fernando Pastor
  surname: Ricos
  fullname: Ricos, Fernando Pastor
  email: fpastor@pros.upv.es
  organization: Universitat Politècnica de València,València,Spain
– sequence: 3
  givenname: Beatriz
  surname: Marin
  fullname: Marin, Beatriz
  email: bmarin@dsic.upv.es
  organization: Universitat Politècnica de València,València,Spain
– sequence: 4
  givenname: Tanja E. J.
  surname: Vos
  fullname: Vos, Tanja E. J.
  email: tvos@dsic.upv.es
  organization: Universitat Politècnica de València,València,Spain
BookMark eNotj8FOwzAQRA0CiVJy5sIhP5CyXtvxWpxKBQWpEhIt58pJNshSmlR2OPD3BMrpzVxG867FRT_0LMSthIWU2tyrUmtQuPil1uWZyJx1pAEsGCJzLmZIShUOSnklspRCBcaQJoV2Jh7W0R8OPhaPPnGTL-sxDH2-5Y5P6f2r45S3Q8y3dQzHcWop33EaQ_95Iy5b3yXO_jkXH89Pu9VLsXlbv66Wm8IjubFoQXpC1hodWaIWQWIlbe3K1hOjc02N7Cu0tdWskKyyDYLxoKxprGI1F3en3cDM-2MM09_vvZws_sx_AAQnSLo
CODEN IEEPAD
ContentType Conference Proceeding
DBID 6IE
6IL
CBEJK
ESBDL
RIE
RIL
DOI 10.1145/3644032.3644446
DatabaseName IEEE Electronic Library (IEL) Conference Proceedings
IEEE Proceedings Order Plan All Online (POP All Online) 1998-present by volume
IEEE Xplore All Conference Proceedings
IEEE Open Access Journals
IEEE Electronic Library (IEL)
IEEE Proceedings Order Plans (POP All) 1998-Present
DatabaseTitleList
Database_xml – sequence: 1
  dbid: RIE
  name: IEEE Electronic Library (IEL)
  url: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/
  sourceTypes: Publisher
DeliveryMethod fulltext_linktorsrc
Discipline Computer Science
EISBN 9798400705885
EISSN 2833-9061
EndPage 65
ExternalDocumentID 10556440
Genre orig-research
GroupedDBID 6IE
6IL
6IN
AAWTH
ABLEC
ADZIZ
ALMA_UNASSIGNED_HOLDINGS
BEFXN
BFFAM
BGNUA
BKEBE
BPEOZ
CBEJK
CHZPO
ESBDL
IEGSK
OCL
RIE
RIL
ID FETCH-LOGICAL-a289t-f01a82e44298788f2012b17c96fa8e299dc2eab27c74e328737d205a0375d73e3
IEDL.DBID RIE
ISICitedReferencesCount 1
ISICitedReferencesURI http://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=Summon&SrcAuth=ProQuest&DestLinkType=CitingArticles&DestApp=WOS_CPL&KeyUT=001254140700006&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com%2F%23%21%2Fsearch%3Fho%3Df%26include.ft.matches%3Dt%26l%3Dnull%26q%3D
IngestDate Wed Aug 27 02:06:09 EDT 2025
IsDoiOpenAccess true
IsOpenAccess true
IsPeerReviewed false
IsScholarly false
Language English
LinkModel DirectLink
MergedId FETCHMERGED-LOGICAL-a289t-f01a82e44298788f2012b17c96fa8e299dc2eab27c74e328737d205a0375d73e3
OpenAccessLink https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10556440
PageCount 10
ParticipantIDs ieee_primary_10556440
PublicationCentury 2000
PublicationDate 2024-April-15
PublicationDateYYYYMMDD 2024-04-15
PublicationDate_xml – month: 04
  year: 2024
  text: 2024-April-15
  day: 15
PublicationDecade 2020
PublicationTitle Proceedings (International Workshop on Automation of Software Test. Online)
PublicationTitleAbbrev AST
PublicationYear 2024
Publisher ACM
Publisher_xml – name: ACM
SSID ssib055848327
ssj0003211684
Score 1.895372
Snippet Scriptless testing at the GUI level involves generating test sequences on the fly. These test sequences mimic user interactions on the GUI The creation of...
SourceID ieee
SourceType Publisher
StartPage 56
SubjectTerms action selection
Automation
Debugging
Grammar
grammars
Graphical user interfaces
GUI testing
Reliability
scriptless testing
Software
Software testing
Title Grammar-Based Action Selection Rules for Scriptless Testing
URI https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10556440
WOSCitedRecordID wos001254140700006&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com%2F%23%21%2Fsearch%3Fho%3Df%26include.ft.matches%3Dt%26l%3Dnull%26q%3D
hasFullText 1
inHoldings 1
isFullTextHit
isPrint
link http://cvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwlV27TsMwFLWgYmAqjyLeysDqNn7EdsUEiMKAqgqK1K3y4wYhoRSlLd_PtZsWFgamOJEsRfZNzj22zz2EXDmfM-OUxxkQOZXgHLUYFjQa2IEUBhik6vpPejg0k0l_1IjVkxYGANLhM-jGZtrLDzO_jEtlvWTmKCUy9G2t1UqstQ6eApEUo1NvFlgEUhtlZFPOh8miJ2JfwbvxKmPG-8tPJcHJoP3PF9kjnR9hXjbaQM4-2YLqgLTXzgxZ86EekuuH2kZRGr1FkArZTRIvZC_J8ya2npcfMM8wX8Uu8a-Bd_NsHAtuVG8d8jq4H9890sYmgVpkSwta5swaDhKRxSChLRHSuWPa91VpDSDcBM_BOq69liCQIQkdeF7Y6H4btABxRFrVrIJjkqnAglVGCQlaIrA76XXet0F4rktfhBPSiYMx_VxVwpiux-H0j-dnZJdjEhB3X1hxTlqLegkXZMd_Ld7n9WWav2_wL5jI
linkProvider IEEE
linkToHtml http://cvtisr.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/link/0/eLvHCXMwlV1LSwMxEA5SBT3VR8W3e_C67eaxmyyeVKwVaylaobeSx2wRZCt9-PudpNvqxYOnzQYCy2Sy30ySbz5CroxNqDKZxRngSSzAmFijW8RewA4EV0AhVNfvyl5PDYd5vyKrBy4MAITLZ9D0zXCW7yZ24bfKWkHMUQjM0DdTIViypGut3CdFLEX_lOstFo7JTaZEVdCHirTF_WjOmv4pfMz7S1ElAEq7_s9P2SWNH2pe1F-Dzh7ZgHKf1FfaDFG1VA_I9cNUe1pafIsw5aKbQF-IXoPqjW-9LD5gFmHEikP8fwPfZtHAl9woxw3y1r4f3HXiSigh1pgvzeMioVoxQJPkClPaAkGdGSptnhVaAQKOswy0YdJKARxzJC4dS1Lt9W-d5MAPSa2clHBEosxRpzOVcQFSILQbYWWSa8ctk4VN3TFpeGOMPpe1MEYrO5z80X9JtjuD5-6o-9h7OiU7DEMCfxZD0zNSm08XcE627Nf8fTa9CHP5DRbAnA8
openUrl ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fsummon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=proceeding&rft.title=Proceedings+%28International+Workshop+on+Automation+of+Software+Test.+Online%29&rft.atitle=Grammar-Based+Action+Selection+Rules+for+Scriptless+Testing&rft.au=Hufkens%2C+Lianne+V.&rft.au=Ricos%2C+Fernando+Pastor&rft.au=Marin%2C+Beatriz&rft.au=Vos%2C+Tanja+E.+J.&rft.date=2024-04-15&rft.pub=ACM&rft.eissn=2833-9061&rft.spage=56&rft.epage=65&rft_id=info:doi/10.1145%2F3644032.3644446&rft.externalDocID=10556440