29,323 research outputs found
Spinal Test Suites for Software Product Lines
A major challenge in testing software product lines is efficiency. In
particular, testing a product line should take less effort than testing each
and every product individually. We address this issue in the context of
input-output conformance testing, which is a formal theory of model-based
testing. We extend the notion of conformance testing on input-output featured
transition systems with the novel concept of spinal test suites. We show how
this concept dispenses with retesting the common behavior among different, but
similar, products of a software product line.Comment: In Proceedings MBT 2014, arXiv:1403.704
A Formal TLS Handshake Model in LNT
Testing of network services represents one of the biggest challenges in cyber
security. Because new vulnerabilities are detected on a regular basis, more
research is needed. These faults have their roots in the software development
cycle or because of intrinsic leaks in the system specification. Conformance
testing checks whether a system behaves according to its specification. Here
model-based testing provides several methods for automated detection of
shortcomings. The formal specification of a system behavior represents the
starting point of the testing process. In this paper, a widely used
cryptographic protocol is specified and tested for conformance with a test
execution framework. The first empirical results are presented and discussed.Comment: In Proceedings MARS/VPT 2018, arXiv:1803.0866
Implementing E-learning Specifications with Conformance Testing: Profiling for IMS Learning Design
Submitted for publication. Please contact authors for reference.Improving interoperability between e-learning systems and content has been one of the driving forces behind the adoption of e-learning specifications over recent years. A vital step towards achieving this goal is the widespread adoption of conformant implementations of e-learning specifications. A conformant implementation is one which fully complies with the conformance requirements of the specification. However, conformance testing is time consuming and expensive. The process of localising specifications to create so-called “Application Profiles” to meet individual community needs further complicates conformance testing efforts. To solve this problem, we developed the conformance testing approach presented in this article. This approach simplifies the development of Application Profiles, and the process of conformance testing against them. Using this approach, test suites can be generated to test software applications against both e-learning specifications and their derived Application Profiles. A case study based around the IMS Learning Design specification demonstrates this process
Combinatorial Interaction Testing for Automated Constraint Repair
Highly-configurable software systems can be easily
adapted to address user’s needs. Modelling parameter configurations
and their relationships can facilitate software reuse. Combinatorial
Interaction Testing (CIT) methods are already often
used to drive systematic testing of software system configurations.
However, a model of the system’s configurations not conforming
with respect to its software implementation, must be repaired in
order to restore conformance. In this paper we extend CIT by
devising a new search-based technique able to repair a model
composed of a set of constraints among the various software
system’s parameters. Our technique can be used to detect and
fix faults both in the model and in the real software system.
Experiments for five real-world systems show that our approach
can repair on average 37% of conformance faults. Moreover, we
also show it can infer parameter constraints in a large real-world
software system, hence it can be used for automated creation of
CIT models
Formal Methods Based Development of a PCA Infusion Pump Reference Model: Generic Infusion Pump (GIP) Project
As software becomes ever more ubiquitous and complex in medical devices, it becomes increasingly important to assure that it performs safely and effectively. The critical nature of medical devices necessitates that the software used therein be reliable and free of errors. It becomes imperative, therefore, to have a conformance review process in place to ascertain the correctness of the software and to ensure that it meets all requirements and standards.
Formal methods have long been suggested as a means to design and develop medical device software. However, most manufacturers shy from using these techniques, citing them as too complex and time consuming. As a result, (potentially life-threatening) errors are often not discovered until a device is already on the market.
In this paper we present a safety model based approach to software conformance checking. Safety models enable the application of formal methods to software conformance checking, and provide a framework for rigorous testing. To illustrate the approach, we develop the safety model for a Generic Infusion Pump (GIP), and explain how it can be used to aid software conformance checking in a regulatory environment
Conformance Checking for Pushdown Reactive Systems based on Visibly Pushdown Languages
Testing pushdown reactive systems is deemed important to guarantee a precise
and robust software development process. Usually, such systems can be specified
by the formalism of Input/Output Visibly Pushdown Labeled Transition System
(IOVPTS), where the interaction with the environment is regulated by a pushdown
memory. Hence a conformance checking can be applied in a testing process to
verify whether an implementation is in compliance to a specification using an
appropriate conformance relation. In this work we establish a novelty
conformance relation based on Visibly Pushdown Languages (VPLs) that can model
sets of desirable and undesirable behaviors of systems. Further, we show that
test suites with a complete fault coverage can be generated using this
conformance relation for pushdown reactive systems.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2107.1142
A two-level approach to automated conformance testing of VHDL designs
For manufacturers of consumer electronics, conformance testing of embedded software is a vital issue. To improve performance, parts of this software are implemented in hardware, often designed in the Hardware Description Language VHDL. Conformance testing is a time consuming and error-prone process. Thus automating (parts of) this process is essential. There are many tools for test generation and for VHDL simulation. However, most test generation tools operate on a high level of abstraction and applying the generated tests to a VHDL design is a complicated task. For each specific case one can build a layer of dedicated circuitry and/or software that performs this task. It appears that the ad-hoc nature of this layer forms the bottleneck of the testing process. We propose a {em generic solution for bridging this gap: a generic layer of software dedicated to interface with VHDL implementations. It consists of a number of Von Neumann-like components that can be instantiated for each specific VHDL design. This paper reports on the construction of and some initial experiences with a concrete tool environment based on these principles
Ensuring interoperability between network elements in next generation networks
Next Generation Networks (NGNs), based on the Internet Protocol (IP), implement
several services such as IP-based telephony and are beginning to replace the classic telephony
systems. Due to the development and implementation of new powerful services
these systems are becoming increasingly complex.
Implementing these new services (typically software-based network elements) is often
accompanied by unexpected and erratic behaviours which can manifest as interoperability
problems. The reason for this caused by insufficient testing at the developing
companies. The testing of such products is by nature a costly and time-consuming
exercise and therefore cut down to what is considered the maximum acceptable level.
Ensuring the interoperability between network elements is a known challenge. However,
there exists no concept of which testing methods should be utilised to achieve an
acceptable level of quality. The objective of this thesis was to improve the interoperability
between network elements in NGNs by creating a testing scheme comprising of
three diverse testing methods: conformance testing, interoperability testing and posthoc
analysis.
In the first project a novel conformance testing methodology for developing sets of conformance
test cases for service specifications in NGNs was proposed. This methodology significantly improves the chance of interoperability and provides a considerable enhancement to the currently used interoperability tests. It was evaluated by successfully
applying it to the Presence Service.
The second report proposed a post-hoc methodology which enables the identification
of the ultimate causes for interoperability problems in a NGN in daily operation. The
new methods were implemented in the tool IMPACT (IP-Based Multi Protocol Posthoc
Analyzer and Conformance Tester), which stores all exchanged messages between
network elements in a database. Using SQL queries, the causes for errors can be found
efficiently.
Overall the presented testing scheme improves significantly the chance that network
elements interoperate successfully by providing new methods. Beyond that, the quality
of the software product is raised by mapping these methods to phases in a process model
and providing well defined steps on which test method is the best suited at a certain
stage
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