Testing real-time systems using TINA

The paper presents a technique for model-based black-box conformance testing of real-time systems using the Time Petri Net Analyzer TINA. Such test suites are derived from a prioritized time Petri net composed of two concurrent sub-nets specifying respectively the expected behaviour of the system under test and its environment.We describe how the toolbox TINA has been extended to support automatic generation of time-optimal test suites. The result is optimal in the sense that the set of test cases in the test suite have the shortest possible accumulated time to be executed. Input/output conformance serves as the notion of implementation correctness, essentially timed trace inclusion taking environment assumptions into account. Test cases selection is based either on using manually formulated test purposes or automatically from various coverage criteria specifying structural criteria of the model to be fulfilled by the test suite. We discuss how test purposes and coverage criterion are specified in the linear temporal logic SE-LTL, derive test sequences, and assign verdicts

The Power of QDDs

peer reviewedQueue-content Decision Diagrams (QDDs) are finite-automaton based data structures for representing (possibly infinite) sets of contents of a finite collection of unbounded FIFO queues. Their intended use is to serve as a symbolic representation of the possible queue contents that can occur in the state space of a protocol modeled by finite-state machines communicating through unbounded queues. This is done with the help of a loop-first search, a state-space exploration technique that attempts whenever possible to compute symbolically the effect of repeatedly executing a loop any number of times, making it possible to analyze protocols with infinite state spaces though without the guarantee of termination. This paper first solves a key problem concerning the use of QDDs in this context: it precisely characterizes when, and shows how, the operations required by a loop-first search can be applied to QDDs. Then, it addresses the problem of exploiting QDDs and loop-first searches to broaden the range of properties that can be checked from simple state reachability to temporal logic. Finally, a sufficient criterion for the termination of a loop-first search using QDDs is given

IF-2.0: A Validation Environment for Component-Based Real-Time Systems

Introduction It is widely recognised that the automated validation of complex systems can hardly be achieved without tool integration. The development of the IF-1.0 toolbox [3] was initiated several years ago, in order to provide an open validation platform for timed asynchronous systems (such as telecommunication protocols or distributed applications, in general). The toolbox was built upon an intermediate representation language based on extended timed automata. In particular, this representation allowed us to study the semantics of real-time primitives for asynchronous systems. Currently, the toolbox contains dedicated tools on the intermediate language (such as compilers, static analysers and model-checkers) as well as front-ends to various speci cation languages and validation tools (academic and commercial ones). Among the dedicated tools, we focused on static analysis (such as slicing and abstraction) which are mandatory for an automated validation of complex systems. Finally

Comparing TorX, Autolink, TGV and UIO test algorithms

This paper presents a comparison of four algorithms for test derivation: TorX, TGV, Autolink and UIO algorithms. The algorithms are classified according to the detection power of their conformance relations. Because Autolink does not have an explicit conformance relation, a conformance relation is reconstructed for it. The experimental results obtained by applying TorX, Autolink, UIO and TGV to the Conference Protocol case study are consistent with the theoretical results of this paper

Software Tools for Technology Transfer manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) More Testable Properties

Abstract. Testing remains a widely used validation technique for software systems. However, recent needs in software development (e.g., in terms of security concerns) may require to extend this technique in order to address a larger set of properties. In this article, we explore the set of testable properties within the Safety-Progress classification where testability means to establish by testing that a relation, between the tested system and the property under scrutiny, holds. We characterize testable properties w.r.t. several relations of interest. For each relation, we give a sufficient condition for a property to be testable. Then, we study and delineate a fine-grain characterization of testable properties: for each Safety-Progress class, we identify the subset of testable properties and their corresponding test oracle. Furthermore, we address automatic test generation for the proposed framework by providing a general synthesis technique that allows to obtain canonical testers for the testable properties in the Safety-Progress classification. Moreover, we show how the usual notion of quiescence can be taken into account in our general framework, and, how quiescence improves the testability results. Then, we list some existing testing approaches that could benefit from this work by addressing a wider set of properties. Finally, we propose Java-PT, a prototype Java toolbox that implements the results introduced in this article.