Towards model-driven unit testing

Abstract

The Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) approach for constructing software systems advocates a stepwise refinement and transformation process starting from high-level models to concrete program code. In contrast to numerous research efforts that try to generate executable function code from models, we propose a novel approach termed model-driven monitoring. On the model level the behavior of an operation is specified with a pair of UML composite structure diagrams (visual contract), a visual notation for pre- and post-conditions. The specified behavior is implemented by a programmer manually. An automatic translation from our visual contracts to JML assertions allows for monitoring the hand-coded programs during their execution. In this paper1 we present how we extend our approach to allow for modeldriven unit testing, where we utilize the generated JML assertions as test oracles. Further, we present an idea how to generate sufficient test cases from our visual contracts with the help of model-checking techniques. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.