Model-based regression testing by OCL

Abstract

Model-based testing has gained widespread acceptance over the last decade, not only in academia but also in industry. Despite its powerful features of abstraction and automation, most existing approaches and tools provide only limited support for regression testing. Yet regression testing, the repeated execution of selected test cases after system modification, is vital, because changes may introduce new bugs or unwanted side effects that must be avoided at all costs. Model-based testing’s potential for supporting regression testing has yet to be explored, even though syntactic and semantic abstractions within software models already allow identifying changes in software systems. This change information can easily be used for test case selection. In this article, we present a model-based regression testing method based on OCL. By means of a running example using the UML Testing Profile we show how our method supports regression testing on the basis of an existing model-based testing method.