| A recent noteworthy addition to the numerous methods of testing software systems which involve discrete input parameters is the application of combinatorial designs called covering arrays. Employing a covering array ensures that all possible combinations of any t parameter settings are tested. Software systems are an essential part of daily operations in all areas of industry. Software companies must compete by rapidly producing, maintaining, and updating complex systems. Product testing, a basic ingredient in this process, is often significantly time-consuming and expensive, and so must be optimized.; This dissertation introduces new algebraic and recursive methods for constructing covering arrays which provide 3-way coverage of parameters values. Several of these constructions exploit the transitivity of a group action and another construction builds larger arrays from smaller arrays. The constructions presented here produce smaller covering arrays than the commercial product AETGSM.; A covering array of size N, strength t, degree k, and order v is written CA(N; t, k, v) and denotes a k x N array on v symbols in which every t x N subarray contains every possible t x 1 column at least once. A covering array can be used to test a system with k discrete, fixed-level parameters by associating each row of the array with a parameter, each parameter value with a symbol, and each column of the array with a possible setting of the parameters values. Thus each of the N columns represents a test run of the system. |
