Abstract
In the context of software engineering, test automation as a field of
research has been around for a very long time. Yet, testing and related
concepts are still generally considered to be one of the most time-consuming
and expensive parts of the software life cycle. Although it is a field with
a relatively long research background, many existing test automation systems
are still relatively simple and not very different from the early days. They
still focus on executing an existing, usually manually crafted, set of tests
over and over again. One approach that has also been around for a relatively
long time but has only recently begun to attract considerable interest in
the domain of software testing is model-based testing. In model-based
testing, the system under test is represented by a model describing its
expected behaviour at a higher abstraction level, and a set of chosen
algorithms are used to generate tests from this model. Currently, these
models need to be manually crafted from the specification. This thesis
presents an approach for observation-based modelling in model-based testing
and aims to provide automated assistance for model creation. This includes
design and architectural solutions to support observation and testing of the
system, analysis of different types of executions used as a basis for
observations, and finally combines the different viewpoints to provide
automated tool support to generate an initial test model, based on the
captured observations, that is suitable for use in model-based testing. This
model is then refined and verified against the specification. As the approach
reverses the traditional model-based testing approach of going from
specification to implementation, to going from implementation to
specification, guidelines for its application are also presented. The
research uses a constructive approach, in which a problem is identified, a
construct to address the problem is designed and implemented, and finally the
results are evaluated. The approach has been evaluated in the context of a
practical system in which its application discovered several previously
unknown bugs in the implementation of the system under test. Its
effectiveness was also demonstrated by generating a highly complete model and
showing how the completed model provides additional test coverage both in
terms of code covered and injected faults discovered (test mutants killed).
Original language | English |
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Qualification | Doctor Degree |
Awarding Institution |
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Supervisors/Advisors |
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Award date | 19 Feb 2010 |
Place of Publication | Espoo |
Publisher | |
Print ISBNs | 978-951-38-7376-9 |
Electronic ISBNs | 978-951-38-7377-6 |
Publication status | Published - 2010 |
MoE publication type | G5 Doctoral dissertation (article) |
Keywords
- model-based testing
- test automation
- observation-based modelling
- test generation