An Efficient Design and Implementation of the In-Parameter-Order Algorithm

The In-Parameter-Order-General algorithm is one of the most widely used algorithms for covering array generation. It has found wide adoption in the field of combinatorial testing as it produces acceptably small covering arrays while being faster than alternative algorithms. In this paper we describe in detail how to efficiently design an efficient implementation, referred to as Fast In-Parameter-Order-General algorithm, which improves test generation times significantly while maintaining a low memory footprint compared to existing implementations. Besides the general algorithmic engineering and optimization considerations, we analyse and evaluate their benefits in an experimental study.