KVEST: Automated Generation of Test Suites from Formal Specifications

Abstract

Abstract. KVEST -Kernel VErification and Specification Technology -is based on automated test generation from formal specifications in the RAISE specification language. The technology was developed under contract with Nortel Networks. As of 1999, the methodology and toolset have been applied in three industrial project dealing with verification of large-scale telecommunication software. The first project, the Kernel Verification project, gives its name to the methodology and the toolset as a whole. Results of this project are available from the Formal Methods Europe Application database [13]. It is one of the biggest formal method application presented in the database. This paper provides a brief description of the approach, comparison to related works, and statistics on completed projects.

Experimental evaluation of FSM-based testing methods

“…For related surveys the reader may refer to [18,1,20,13]. In particular, in the last years an increasing research has been developed on the application of these methods to object oriented software [2].…”

On the Adequacy of Statecharts as a Source of Tests for Cryptographic Protocols

“…Techniques proposed by other researchers might certainly generate smaller test suites [4,1,14] than the testing tree method but will not increase coverage because the smaller test suite is a subset of the that obtained through the testing tree method. The lack of coverage increase as a consequence of executing the implementation against the negative tests is surprising.…”

Verification of Operating System Components

“…The first such results are related with KVEST [7], a method for test generation based on formal specifications of functional behavior in form of software contracts, used to construct several test suites for real-time OS developed and maintained by Nortel Networks.…”