MVSCA: Multi-Valued Sequence Covering Array

Abstract

This paper discusses the limitation of both Sequence Covering Array (SCA) and Covering Array (CA) for testing reactive system when the order of parameter-values is sensitive. In doing so, this paper proposes a new model to take the sequence values into consideration. Accordingly, by superimposing the CA onto SCA yields another type of combinatorial test suite termed Multi-Valued Sequence Covering Array (MVSCA) in a more generalized form. This superimposing is a challenging process due to NP-Hardness for both SCA and CA. Motivated by such a challenge, this paper presents the MVSCA with a working illustrative example to show the similarities and differences among combinatorial testing methods. Consequently, the MVSCA is a new trend that can be a research vehicle for researchers to develop new and/or modify existing combinatorial strategies to deal with the combinatorial explosion problem raised by the MVSCA.