  Combinatorial testing is a widely adopted technique for efficiently detecting
faults in software. The quality of combinatorial test generators plays a
crucial role in achieving effective test coverage. Evaluating combinatorial
test generators remains a challenging task that requires diverse and
representative benchmarks. Having such benchmarks might help developers to test
their tools, and improve their performance. For this reason, in this paper, we
present BenCIGen, a highly configurable generator of benchmarks to be used by
combinatorial test generators, empowering users to customize the type of
benchmarks generated, including constraints and parameters, as well as their
complexity. An initial version of such a tool has been used during the
CT-Competition, held yearly during the International Workshop on Combinatorial
Testing. This paper describes the requirements, the design, the implementation,
and the validation of BenCIGen. Tests for the validation of BenCIGen are
derived from its requirements by using a combinatorial interaction approach.
Moreover, we demonstrate the tool's ability to generate benchmarks that reflect
the characteristics of real software systems. BenCIGen not only facilitates the
evaluation of existing generators but also serves as a valuable resource for
researchers and practitioners seeking to enhance the quality and effectiveness
of combinatorial testing methodologies.
