Automatic Test Data Generation for XML Schema-based Partition Testing

We present the XML-based Partition Testing (XPT) approach for the automatic generation of XML instances from a XML Schema. The approach is inspired by the well-known Category Partition method for black-box testing. The generated instances can be used for inter-operability testing of applications that expect in input conforming XML instances, as well as for other interesting purposes, such as database population, XML Schema benchmarking, web services testing, and so on. The implementation of XPT in a prototype tool called TAXI is described. To limit the number of generated instances, TAXI also incorporates practical strategies for handling element weights and type values.