Model based testing using software architecture

Abstract

Software testing is an ultimate obstacle to the final release of software products. Software testing is also a leading cost factor in the overall construction of software products. On the one hand, model-based testing methods are new testing techniques aimed at increasing the reliability of software, and decreasing the cost by automatically generating a suite of test cases from a formal behavioral model of a system. On the other hand, the architectural specification of a system represents a gross structural and behavioral aspect of a system at the high level of abstraction. Formal architectural specifications of a system also have shown promises to detect faults during software back-end development. In this work, we discuss a hybrid testing method to generate test cases. Our proposed method combines the benefits of model-based testing with the benefits of software architecture in a unique way. A simple Client/Server system has been used to illustrate the practicality of our testing technique. © 2010 IEEE.