Automatic generation of test cases from activity diagrams for UML based testing (UBT)

Activity diagrams are one of UML behavioural models suitable for system testing because it has the capacity to effectively describe the behaviours of systems under development. In this paper, a technique is proposed that generates test cases from activity diagrams by constructing an activity flow tree (AFT) which stores all the information extracted from the model file of the diagram through the help of a parser. Then, we applied an algorithm to generate test cases from the constructed tree. Test cases were generated based on the elements of activity diagrams such as activity sequences, associated descriptions and conditions. The proposed technique generated accurate test cases that completely tallied with the modeled requirements in the diagram. We utilized all-paths, basic pair paths, conditions, branches and transition criteria for generating test cases using ATM withdrawal operation software as a case study

Object Constraint Language Based Test Case Optimisation

Software testing, a pivotal phase in the Software Develop- ment Life Cycle (SDLC), ensures the correctness and perfor- mance of the corresponding software system. Model-based testing (MBT) is a method to validate whether the software system or specification satisfies the pre-defined requirements through design models. However, with modern systems ex- panding in complexity, testing has become a labour-intensive and unpredictable process within the SDLC. Therefore, many test case optimisation (TCO) techniques have been proposed to make the testing process more manageable. But these ap- proaches predominantly focus on code-based strategies, leav- ing systems expressed in Object Constraint Language (OCL) underserved. OCL is a part of the Unified Modeling Lan- guage (UML) standard and is a type of declarative language used to describe system specification by pre- and post- con- ditions. Initially, OCL has been proposed as a constraint language to add more details to the UML model, but along- side the development of OCL itself, there are more and more systems whose specifications are expressed in OCL.This thesis aims to systematically investigate the feasibil- ity of applying TCO techniques to the OCL-defined systems, with an emphasis on test case prioritisation (TCP) and test case minimisation (TCM) processes. A systematic literature review for the directly related topic, UML-based test case generation, is conducted in this thesis. Also, we adapted a set of test case optimisation algorithms and compared the performance between these algorithms under the context of OCL. Moreover, we modified one metric for the TCP evalu- ation process, which made the metric more suitable for the MBT and mutation testing environment. Furthermore, we introduce a full set of mutation operators and corresponding classifications to the OCL standard library, offering practical guidance for optimisation processes.The proposed TCO processes are validated and evalu- ated through four real-world systems expressed in OCL with different complexities. The experiment results demonstrate that for the TCM process, the size of the minimised test suite is reduced from 33.33% to 81.8% without losing any fault de- tection ability. For the TCP process, leveraging the modified evaluation metric, the improvements are up to 50%, indicat- ing that the prioritised test suite can detect system defects earlier when compared to the original one. Evaluating based on the considerations of effectiveness, efficiency and stability, we suggest the NSGA-II for the TCM process and the genetic algorithm for the TCP process. When combining TCP and TCM processes, the TCM process consistently increases the efficiency of the TCP process by reducing the search space for the prioritisation process