Combinatorial interaction testing (CIT) aims at constructing a covering array (CA) of all value combinations at a specific interaction strength, to detect faults that are caused by the interaction of parameters. CIT has been widely used in different applications, with many algorithms and tools having been proposed to support CA construction. To date, however, there appears to have been no studies comparing different CA constructors when only some of the CA test cases are executed. In this paper, we present an investigation of five popular CA constructors: ACTS, Jenny, PICT, CASA and TCA. We conducted empirical studies examining the five programs, focusing on interaction coverage and fault detection. The experimental results show that when there is no preference or special justification for using other CA constructors, then Jenny is recommended—because it achieves better interaction coverage and fault detection than the other four constructors in many cases. Our results also show that when using ACTS or CASA, their CAs must be prioritized before testing. The main reason for this is that these CAs can result in considerable interaction coverage or fault detection capabilities when executing a large number of test cases; however, they may also produce the lowest rates of fault detection and interaction coverage.

中文翻译：

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覆盖数组构造函数：交互覆盖和故障检测的实验分析

组合交互测试（CIT）旨在以特定的交互强度构造所有值组合的覆盖数组（CA），以检测由参数交互引起的故障。CIT已广泛用于不同的应用程序中，已经提出了许多算法和工具来支持CA的构建。但是，到目前为止，仅执行某些CA测试用例时，似乎还没有研究比较不同的CA构造函数。在本文中，我们提出了对五个流行的CA构造函数的调查：ACTS，Jenny，PICT，CASA和TCA。我们对这五个程序进行了实证研究，重点是交互覆盖和故障检测。实验结果表明，在没有使用其他CA构造函数的偏好或特殊理由的情况下，建议使用Jenny，因为在许多情况下，它比其他四个构造函数实现更好的交互作用范围和故障检测。我们的结果还表明，使用ACTS或CASA时，必须先确定其CA的优先级，然后再进行测试。这样做的主要原因是，在执行大量测试用例时，这些CA可能导致相当大的交互覆盖或故障检测功能。但是，它们也可能产生最低的故障检测和交互覆盖率。