Automatic Generation of Test Cases from UML Models

Abstract

[Context] The growing demand for high-quality software has caused the industry to incorporate processes to enable them to comply with these standards, but increasing the cost of development. A strategy to reduce this cost is to incorporate quality evaluations from early stages of software development. A technique that facilitates this evaluation is the model-based testing, which allows to generate test cases at early phases using as input the conceptual models of the system.
 [Objective] In this paper, we introduce TCGen, a tool that enables the automatic generation of abstract test cases starting from UML conceptual models.
 [Method] The design and implementation of TCGen, a technique that applies different testing criteria to class diagrams and state transition diagrams to generates test cases, is presented as a model-based testing approach. To do that, TCGen uses UML models, which are widely used at industry and a set of algorithms that recognize the concepts in the models in order to generate abstract test cases.
 [Results] An exploratory experimental evaluation has been performed to compare the TCGen tool with traditional testing.
 [Conclusions] Even though the exploratory evaluation shows promising results, it is necessary to perform more empirical evaluations in order to generalize the results.
 Abstract (in Spanish):
 [Contexto] La creciente demanda de software de alta calidad ha provocado que la industria incorpore procesos para permitirles cumplir con estos estándares, pero aumentando el costo del desarrollo. Una estrategia para reducir este costo es incorporar evaluaciones de calidad desde las primeras etapas del desarrollo del software. Una técnica que facilita esta evaluación es la prueba basada en modelos, que permite generar casos de prueba en fases tempranas utilizando como entrada los modelos conceptuales del sistema.
 [Objetivo] En este artículo, presentamos TCGen, una herramienta que permite la generación automática de casos de pruebas abstractas a partir de modelos conceptuales UML.
 [Método] El diseño e implementación de TCGen, una técnica que aplica diferentes criterios de prueba a los diagramas de clases y diagramas de transición de estados para generar casos de prueba, se presenta como un enfoque de prueba basado en modelos. Para hacer eso, TCGen utiliza modelos UML, que son ampliamente utilizados en la industria y un conjunto de algoritmos que reconocen los conceptos en los modelos para generar casos de prueba abstractos.
 [Resultados] Se realizó una evaluación experimental exploratoria para comparar la herramienta TCGen con las pruebas tradicionales.
 [Conclusiones] Aunque la evaluación exploratoria muestra resultados prometedores, es necesario realizar más evaluaciones empíricas para generalizar los resultados.

Assembling Scenario Patterns for Checking Model Behavior.

“…The authors in [SHS03] and [VT98] described an approach to generate test cases automatically from state charts. In [PM18], a tool is presented that is called TCGen in order to automatically generate test cases using different testing criteria starting from UML models. In contrast to [SHS03], [VT98] and [PM18], our work provides methodological suggestion and advice for developers to construct the test cases.…”

“…In [PM18], a tool is presented that is called TCGen in order to automatically generate test cases using different testing criteria starting from UML models. In contrast to [SHS03], [VT98] and [PM18], our work provides methodological suggestion and advice for developers to construct the test cases. [AAFR13] proposes an approach for specifying and analyzing temporal properties expressed in TOCL (Temporal logic extension of OCL), and these properties are checked against behavioral scenarios.…”

Using Metamodels to Improve Model-Based Testing of Service Orchestrations

“…Pérez et al [37] introduce an MBT tool that generates abstract test cases from conceptual models of a system. It uses the UML class diagram and the state transition diagram to represents the structure and behavior of the SUT.…”