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Structural Specification-Based Testing: Automated Support and Experimental Evaluation
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Structural Specification-Based Testing: Automated Support and Experimental Evaluation
Juei Chang6  and Debra J. Richardson7
| (6) |
Sun Microsystems Inc., 901 San Antonio Road, MTV10-140, Palo Alto, CA 94303-4900, USA |
| (7) |
Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3425, USA |
Abstract
In this paper, we describe a testing technique, called structural specification-based testing (SST), which utilizes the formal specification of a program unit as the basis for test selection and test coverage measurement.
We also describe an automated testing tool, called ADLscope, which supports SST for program units specified in Sun Microsystems’
Assertion Definition Language (ADL). ADLscope automatically generates coverage conditions from a program’s ADL specification.
While the program is tested, ADLscope determines which of these conditions are covered by the tests. An uncovered condition
exhibits aspects of the specification inadequately exercised during testing. The tester uses this information to develop new
test data to exercise the uncovered conditions.
We provide an overview of SST’s specification-based test criteria and describe the design and implementation of ADLscope.
Specification-based testing is guided by a specification, whereby the testing activity is directly related to what a component
under test is supposed to do, rather than what it actually does. Specification-based testing is a significant advance in testing,
because it is often more straightforward to accomplish and it can reveal failures that are often missed by traditional code-based
testing techniques. As an initial evaluation of the capabilities of specification-based testing, we conducted an experiment
to measure defect detection capabilities, code coverage and usability of SST/ADLscope; we report here on the results.
This research was sponsored in part by the Air Force Material Command, Rome Laboratory, and the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency under agreement number #F30602-97-2-0033; and Sun Microsystems Inc. and the University of California under
MICRO grants #95-124 and #96-002. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted
as representing the official position or policy, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government, AFMC, Rome Laboratory,
DARPA, or the University of California, and no official endorsement should be inferred.
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