Title
Improving the performance of OCL constraint solving with novel heuristics for logical operations: a search-based approach
Abstract
A common practice to specify constraints on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) models is using the Object Constraint Language (OCL). Such constraints serve various purposes, ranging from simply providing precise meaning to the models to supporting complex verification and validation activities. In many applications, these constraints have to be solved to obtain values satisfying the constraints, for example, in the case of model-based testing (MBT) to generate test data for the purpose of generating executable test cases. In our previous work, we proposed novel heuristics for various OCL constructs to efficiently solve them using search algorithms. These heuristics are enhanced in this paper to further improve the performance of OCL constraint solving. We performed an empirical evaluation comprising of three case studies using three search algorithms: Alternating Variable Method (AVM), (1ź+ź1) Evolutionary Algorithm (EA), and a Genetic Algorithm (GA) and in addition Random Search (RS) was used as a comparison baseline. In the first case study, we evaluated each heuristics using carefully designed artificial problems. In the second case study, we evaluated the heuristics on various constraints of Cisco's Video Conferencing Systems defined to support MBT. Finally, the third case study is about EU-Rent Car Rental specification and is obtained from the literature. The results of the empirical evaluation showed that (1ź+ź1) EA and AVM with the improved heuristics significantly outperform the rest of the algorithms.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1007/s10664-015-9392-6
Empirical Software Engineering
Keywords
Field
DocType
UML,OCL,Search-based testing,Test data,Empirical evaluation
Data mining,Random search,Search algorithm,Evolutionary algorithm,Computer science,Heuristics,Test case,Object Constraint Language,Genetic algorithm,Executable
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
21
6
1382-3256
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
9
0.46
34
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Shaukat Ali187367.33
Muhammad Zohaib Iqbal234819.59
maham khalid390.46
Andrea Arcuri4263092.48