JST: An automatic test generation tool for industrial Java applications with strings

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Abstract
In this paper we present JST, a tool that automatically generates a high coverage test suite for industrial strength Java applications. This tool uses a numeric-string hybrid symbolic execution engine at its core which is based on the Symbolic Java PathFinder platform. However, in order to make the tool applicable to industrial applications the existing generic platform had to be enhanced in numerous ways that we describe in this paper. The JST tool consists of newly supported essential Java library components and widely used data structures; novel solving techniques for string constraints, regular expressions, and their interactions with integer and floating point numbers; and key optimizations that make the tool more efficient. We present a methodology to seamlessly integrate the features mentioned above to make the tool scalable to industrial applications that are beyond the reach of the original platform in terms of both applicability and performance. We also present extensive experimental data to illustrate the effectiveness of our tool.