Evaluating the effectiveness of web application testing techniques using automated tools

Abstract

The heterogeneous structure and dynamic nature of web applications have made the testing procedure a challenge. Producing high-quality web applications can be performed by conducting appropriate testing techniques. As a result, several white-box and session-based testing techniques have been proposed in the literature. In this work, the performance and effectiveness of these testing techniques are evaluated in terms of fault detection on a simulated PHP online bookstore. The testing techniques are examined with the use of PHPUnit, xDebug and Selenium automated testing tools. We believe that combining the testing techniques with appropriate automated testing tools (PHPUnit and Selenium) can be effective in terms of fault detection and time spent to construct and run test cases on PHP web applications. The results show that some testing techniques are preferred. We also identify categories of faults that are amenable to detection by each of the techniques, as well as categories of faults that are difficult to detect by any of the techniques. Moreover, using the automated tools has helped in automating the conduct of the tests and in reducing the time required to perform them.