AmPyfier: Test Amplification in Python

Abstract

Test Amplification is a method to extend handwritten tests into a more rigorous test suite covering corner cases in the system under test. Unfortunately, the current state-of-the-art for test amplification heavily relies on program analysis techniques which benefit a lot from explicit type declarations present in statically typed languages like Java and C++. In dynamically typed languages, such type declarations are not available and as a consequence test amplification has yet to find its way to programming languages like Python, Ruby and Javascript. In this paper, we present AmPyfier, a proof-of-concept tool, which brings test amplification to the dynamically typed, interpreted language Python. We evaluated this approach on 7 open-source projects, and found that AmPyfier could successfully strengthen 7 out of 10 test classes (70%). As such we demonstrate that test amplification is feasible for one of the most popular programming languages in use today.