Automatic Test Cases Generation for Statechart Specifications from Semantics to Algorithm

Abstract

This paper studies automatic test cases generation for Statechart specifications. Applying Tretmans’ approach to generate test cases from labeled transition systems, we provide a solid mathematical basis for conformance testing and automatic test case generation for Statechart specifications. In order to make the test cases generation process more simple and efficient, we propose observable semantics as a suitable semantics model for describing observable behavior subset of a Statechart specification, which is different from complete semantics used for Statechart specification verification and model checking. Then we describe how to use this semantics model for not only generation reactive systems but also critical reactive systems. We also propose a formal conformance relation based on presented semantics model and test hypothesis, and provide an algorithm which, for a Statechart specification, generates a test suite. For Statechart specifications with graph semantics the algorithm can generate complete test suite, and for Statechart specifications with tree semantics cost-efficient sound test suite can be generated.