Scope

The TAP conference is devoted to the synergy of proofs and tests, to the application of techniques from both sides and their combination for the advancement of software quality.

Testing and proving seem to be orthogonal techniques: Once a program has been proven to be correct then additional testing seems pointless; however, when such a proof in not feasible, then testing the program seems to be the only option. This view has dominated the research community for a long time, and has resulted in distinct communities pursuing the different research areas.

The development of both approaches has led to the discovery of common issues and to the realization of potential synergy. Perhaps the use of model checking in testing was one of the first signs that a counterexample to a proof may be interpreted as a test case. Recent breakthroughs in deductive techniques such as satisfiability modulo theories, abstract interpretation, and interactive theorem proving have paved the way for new and practically effective methods of powering testing techniques. Moreover, since formal, proof-based verification is costly, testing invariants and background theories can be helpful to detect errors early and to improve cost effectiveness. Summing up, in the past few years an increasing number of research efforts have encountered the need for combining proofs and tests, dropping earlier dogmatic views of incompatibility and taking instead the best of what each of these software engineering domains has to offer.

The TAP conference aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working in the converging fields of testing and proving by offering a generous forum for the presentation of ongoing research, for tutorials on established technologies and for informal discussions.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest cover theory definitions, tool constructions and experimentations, and include among others:

Bridging the gap between concrete and symbolic techniques, e.g. using proof search in satisfiability modulo theories solvers to enhance various testing techniques
Transfer of concepts from testing to proving (e.g., coverage criteria) and from proving to testing
Program proving with the aid of testing techniques
Verification and testing techniques combining proofs and tests
Generation of test data, oracles, or preambles by deductive techniques such as: theorem proving, model checking, symbolic execution, constraint logic programming
Model-based testing and verification
Generation of specifications by deduction
Automatic bug finding
Debugging of programs combining static and dynamic analysis
Case studies combining tests and proofs
Domain specific applications of testing and proving to new application domains such as validating security protocols, vulnerability detection of programs, security
Testing of verification environments and reasoning engines like solvers and theorem provers
New approaches such as crowd-sourcing and serious games to infer intended semantics and assess correctness
Formal frameworks
Tool descriptions and experience reports
TAP 2015 solicits regular research papers, short papers as well as tutorials. Please follow the submission instructions.