MoFQA: A TDD Process and Toolset for Automatic Test Case Generation from MDD Models

Abstract

Techniques for quality assurance have to deal with the complexity of software systems and the high probabilities of errors appearing in any stage of the software life cycle. Software testing is a widely used approach but, due to the costs involved in this process, development teams often debate its applicability in their projects. In the endeavor to reduce the complexity of this process, this study presents an approach for software development based on Test-Driven Development (TDD) and supported by Model-Based Testing (MBT) tools that allow the automatic generation of test-cases. The approach, called MoFQA (Model-First Quality Assurance), consists of two main aspects: i) a process based on testing techniques, which drives software development defining steps and recommended practices; and ii) a toolset for testers, end-users and stakeholders, which allow them to model system requirements that represent unit and abstract tests for the system and, ultimately, generate executable tests. The tools that MoFQA provides are applicable to web applications. In order to evaluate the usability of MoFQA tools, two preliminary validation experiences were driven and the results are presented.