Integrating Model-Based Testing and Analysis Tools via Test Case Exchange

Abstract

Europe's industry in embedded system design is currently aiming for a better integration of tools that support their development, validation and verification processes. The idea is to combine model-driven development with model-based testing and model-based analysis. The interoperability of tools shall be achieved with the help of meta-models that facilitate the mapping between different modelling notations. However, the syntactic and semantic integration of tools is a complex and costly task. A common problem is that different tools support different subsets of a language. Furthermore, semantic differences are a major obstacle to sound integration efforts. In this paper we advocate an alternative, more pragmatic approach. We propose the exchange of test cases generated from the models instead of exchanging the models themselves. The advantage is that test cases have a much simpler syntax and semantics, and hence, the mapping between different tools is easier to implement and to maintain. With a formal testing approach with adequate testing criteria a set of test cases can be viewed as partial models that can be formally analysed. We demonstrate an integration of our test case generator Ulysses with the CADP toolbox by means of test case exchange. We generate test cases in Ulysses and verify properties in CADP. We also generate test cases in CADP and perform a mutation analysis in Ulysses.