Theory of test modeling based on regular expressions

Abstract

This paper presents a theory of test modeling by using regular expressions for software behaviors. Unlike the earlier modeling theory of regular expression, the proposed theory is used to build a test model which can derive effective test sequences easily. We firstly establish an expression algebraic system by means of transition sequences and a set of operators. And we then give the modeling method for behaviors of software under test based on this algebraic system. Some examples are also given for illustrating our test modeling method. Compared with the finite state machine model, the expression model is more expressive for the concurrent system and can provide the accurate and concise description of software behaviors. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.