Formal analysis of coupling hypothesis for logical faults

Abstract

Fault-based testing focuses on detecting faults in a software. Test data is typically generated considering the presence of a single fault at a time, under the assumption of coupling hypothesis. Fault-based testing approach, in particular mutation testing, assumes that the coupling hypothesis holds. According to the hypothesis, a test set that can detect presence of single faults in an implementation, is also likely to detect presence of multiple faults. In this paper it is formally shown that the hypothesis is guaranteed to hold for a large number of logical fault classes.