How to choose the right input(s) to test my algorithm?

Question

Suppose i want to trace an algorithm (think of it as a flowchart) to understand how it works, i need an input(s) for this algorithm, the question is: how can i determine the right input(s) that goes through all the cases ? Is there any "scientific" method to determine this input?

Answer 1

If you want to automatically explore the state space of a program, you could try a fuzzer like AFL. But usually programmers do this by running the program under a debugger and thinking a bit about how the input needs to look to take a particular path through the code.

Answer 2

To achieve 100% coverage of all the cases, you'll probably need many test cases.

You might want to do some reading on "test case generation". Typically, software developers think through the possibilities and manually write test cases that they think will exercise each code path. However, another option is to use automated tools, like symbolic execution or concolic execution. You can do some searching on those terms and you'll find lots of material on how they work.