Testing Transactional Applications: APractical Experience

Abstract

This paper reports a practical experience of software testing accomplished by the Software Quality Laboratory of Tecnopolis Csata Novus Ortus in cooperation with Datamat S.p.A. The objective of the joint project was twofold: the definition and development of a formal test suite, the functional testing of a transaction processing software in the stock exchange application area . With respect to the first goal we had the need of define a method for building a complete test suite in terms of: specification of test environment, test process, test documentation, criteria for test derivation. The main result of such experimentation was to allow the replication of the whole test suite in a different target site. The VALID toolkit was chosen as the kernel for the test environment. This tool allows the validation of systems utilising a GUI based on the X window environment, against its specifications using a black box testing method (Jason, Ritter [4]). For the test process definition and test documentation we have taken as reference the IEEE standard 1012 (Software verification and VALEDation plans), IEEE standard 829 (Software test documentation). In relation to the second goal we have built a library of test procedures formally described with the VALID test language and reaching the full coverage of the functionalities of the application under test. The experience in applying the method developed during this project together with the technology used, has shown that this approach is valuable in reducing testing time and costs especially during regression testing in the software maintenance phase.