Exploiting Synergies between Static Analysis and Model-Based Testing

Abstract

In this article we present an approach to couple model-based testing with static analysis based on a tool coupling between Astrée and EmbeddedTester. Astrée reports all potential run-time errors in C programs. This makes it possible to prove the absence of run-time errors, but users may have to deal with false alarms, i.e. spurious notifications about potential run-time errors. Investigating alarms to find out whether they are true errors which have to be fixed, or whether they are false alarms can cause significant effort. The key idea of this work is to apply model-based testing to automatically find test vectors for alarms reported by the static analyzer. When a test vector reproducing the error has been found, it has been proven that it is a true error, when no error has been found with EmbeddedTester's model checking-based CV engine, it has been proven to be a false alarm. This can significantly reduce the alarm analysis effort and reduces the level of expertise needed to perform the code-level software verification.