Symbolic Execution and Software Testing

We review different flavors of symbolic execution, ranging from generalized symbolic execution to dynamic symbolic execution or concolic testing. We also identify challenges to symbolic execution, such as dealing with: looping constructs, multi-threading, recursive data structures, and complex mathematical constraints, as well as scalability challenges due to the path explosion problem. We discuss techniques and tools that address these challenges. Finally we discuss the application of symbolic execution to software testing. If time permits, we will also review applications to: security, robustness, reliability and load testing.