Pattern-Based Test Suite Reduction Method for Smart Contracts

Testing in the software development process is one of the crucial disciplines. The immutability of deployed smart contracts makes tests particularly important in their design and implementation. The objective is to minimize the costs of smart contract testing by reducing the number of test cases. The article presents the test suite reduction method for smart contracts, which exploits the knowledge of their design manner. In particular, the design of a mechanism for evaluating the list of verification rules controlling the execution of transactions was used. The proposed method defines a minimum set of test cases for smart contracts designed according to a specific design pattern. The test case reduction level was shown using analytical formulas enclosed in the paper. Compared to full coverage, the method reduces over 96% of test cases for a smart contract with at least eight verification rules. The performance tests were conducted and the analysis of the results was enclosed as well. Both the smart contract evaluation time and the test suite execution time are less than 0.01 of a millisecond. Besides, the method reduces the number of test data for smart contracts by over 79%. Therefore, the method can be especially useful in continuous software integration and delivery.