A transformation-based approach to testing concurrent programs using UML activity diagrams

Abstract

SUMMARYUnified Modeling Language (UML) activity diagrams are widely used to model concurrent interaction among multiple objects. In this paper, we propose a transformation-based approach to generating scenariooriented test cases for applications modeled by UML activity diagrams. Using a set of transformation rules, the proposed approach first transforms a UML activity diagram specification into an intermediate representation, from which it then constructs test scenarios with respect to the given concurrency coverage criteria. The approach then finally derives a set of test cases for the constructed test scenarios. The approach resolves the difficulties associated with fork and join concurrency in the UML activity diagram and enables control over the number of the resulting test cases. We further implemented a tool to automate the proposed approach and studied its feasibility and effectiveness using a case study. Experimental results show that the approach can generate test cases on demand to satisfy a given concurrency coverage criterion and can detect up to 76.5% of seeded faults when a weak coverage criterion is used. With the approach, testers can not only schedule the software test process earlier, but can also better allocate the testing resources for testing concurrent applications.

Model-based testing using UML activity diagrams: A systematic mapping study

“…These intermediate structures are later used for generating test cases using different graph search methods. In most cases [29,38,58,33,53,40,48,57,43,45,55,62,60], Depth First Search (DFS) has been used for test case generation. However, in some studies [39,41,59,37], DFS has been used in combination with Breath First Search (BFS).…”

“…Graph algorithms [2,29,38,58,33,56,39,72,53,11,40,48,57,41,43,45,55,59,37,62,50,35,52,36,31,47,32,60] 28 [42] proposed a technique to generate all the unique paths in the activity graph (derived from an AD) by covering all the edges and then using a GA to obtain the best test cases. Similarly, Mahali and Acharya [45] proposed an approach to generate all test paths using DFS and then to employ a GA to prioritize them.…”

“…We found 4 studies where ADs were converted into trees. Sun [33] and Sun et al [62] have stated several rules to transform an AD to a set of Extended AND-OR Binary Trees (EBT). The fork and join nodes are replaced during the transformation with concurrent structures represented as binary trees to prevent the path explosion problem during the test case generation.…”

“…As seen in Table 11, most of the primary studies [2,63,30,64,56,35,48,45,40,43,55,65,29] use commercial tools and only a few [64,52,11,29,62] use open source tools for making and editing ADs. In addition, two studies [40,43] have reported the use of a free community edition tool.…”

Bridging the Gap between Requirements Modeling and Behavior-Driven Development

“…Modelbased approaches [10], [17] differ in terms of the model types they process and generate. Approaches targeting UML activity diagrams aim at identifying sequences of actions that satisfy certain properties, such as guaranteeing some form of structural coverage [18], [19] or exercising concurrent behaviors [20], [21]. Approaches that generate test cases directly from textual descriptions [16], [22]- [25] seek to minimize the use of models, by relying mostly on requirements specifications in natural language.…”