Testing communicating systems: A model, a methodology, and a tool

Abstract

This paper follows two main lines of research. The first line is related to the study of models for the description of systems. For this line, we introduce the model of Communicating Systems (CS), which defines a set of common resources, a set of entities, and a topology of communication. The second line focuses on testing methodologies adapted to protocol testing. For this line, we give a formal definition of a generic generation algorithm (GGA). We demonstrate that the CS model with a GGA supports various 1) test architectures, 2) test types: conformance, interoperability, embedded, component testing, and 3) test approaches: passive and active testing. The paper presents also the main characteristics of the TGSE tool (Test Generation, Simulation, and Emulation). TGSE is made-up of a test case generator, based on the CS model and implementing a GGA, a graphic simulator of the execution of a sequence generated by TGSE, and a real-time emulator of communicating specifications. In its current version, TGSE supports the passive and active testing of one or several components with data and temporal constraints. © IFIP 2005.