Rigorous testing by merging structural and behavioral UML representations

Abstract

Error detection and correction in the design phase can reduce total costs and time to market. Yet, testing of design models usually consists of walk-throughs and inspections both of which lack the rigor of systematic testing. Test adequacy criteria for UML models help define necessary objectives during the process of test creation. These test criteria require coverage of various parts of UML models, such as structural (Class Diagram) and behavioral (Sequence Diagram) views. Test criteria are specific to a particular UML view. Test cases on the other hand should cover parts of multiple views. To understand testing needs better, it is useful to be able to observe the effect of tests on both Class Diagrams and Sequence Diagrams. We propose a new graph that encapsulates the many paths that exist between objects via their method calls as a directed acyclic graph (OMDAG). We also introduce the object method execution table (OMET) that captures both execution sequence and associated attribute values by merging the UML views. The merging process is defined in an algorithm that generates and executes tests. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.