Witness and Counterexample Automata for ACTL

Meolic, Robert; Fantechi, Alessandro; Gnesi, Stefania

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-30232-2_17

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…For this subset, a tree-like counterexample can be interpreted as an evidence graph together with a path leading from an initial state to the head of the graph. Meolic et al [17] take a different approach and derive counterexample or witness automata for a fragment of action computation tree logic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relating counterexamples to test cases in CTL model checking specifications

Wijesekera

Ammann

Sun

2007

Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Testing

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Counterexamples produced by model checkers are frequently exploited for the purpose of testing. Counterexamples and test cases are generally treated as essentially the same thing, while in fact they can differ significantly. For example, it might take more than one test case to "cover" a given counterexample, because not all property violations can be illustrated with linear counterexamples. This paper presents a formal relationship between counterexamples and test cases in the context of the Computation Tree Logic (CTL), the logic of the popular model checker SMV. Given a test requirement as a CTL formula, we define what it means for a set of test cases to cover a counterexample associated with that requirement. This result can not only be used in the generation of a test set that satisfies a given test coverage criterion, but also in the determination of whether an extant test set satisfies the criterion. Our results can guide the production of counterexamples in model checkers explicitly intended to support testing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relating counterexamples to test cases in CTL model checking specifications

Wijesekera

Ammann

Sun

2007

Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Advances in Model-Based Testing

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“…Another difference is that property automata are usually employed to express a state-based property, typically specified with a state-based logic, such as LTL (Lineartime Temporal Logic), whereas, in this paper, a property automaton represents sequences of actions instead of states. Moreover, our property automata, at least in part, follow the desire not to recognize all the sequences satisfying a property, but only the "interesting" ones, thus giving witness automata which include only so-called viable witnesses (e.g., [5]).…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consider LTS M and an ACTLW formula φ. A finite sequence of actions act(π) is a finite linear witness for s |= M φ if and only if there exists a finite path π in M that starts in state s and shows completely one of the reasons why s |= M φ holds [5]. If s is the initial state of M, then act(π) is a finite linear witness for M |= φ.…”

Section: Witnesses For Actlwmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is shown how to employ witness automata to generate, in a compositional way, a test sequence to cover a branch in a system consisting of a chain of modules. Later on, an algorithm has been developed and implemented for witness automata generation for ACTL formulae [5], and, subsequently, adapted for ACTLW formulae [6]. The algorithm for both kinds of formulae relies on the information on the sets of states of the LTS satisfying the subformulae of the given formula, which VOLUME 4, 2016 can be obtained by preliminary model checking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Generating and Employing Witness Automata for ACTLW Formulae

Vogrin

Meolic²,

Kapus³

2022

IEEE Access

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When verifying the validity of a formula in a system model by a model checker, a common feature is the generation of a linear witness or counterexample, which is a computation path usually showing a single reason why the formula is valid or, respectively, not. For systems represented with Labeled Transition Systems (LTS) and a subset of ACTLW (Action-based Computation Tree Logic with Unless operator) formulae, a procedure exists for the generation of witness automata, which contain all the interesting finite linear witnesses, thus revealing all the reasons of the validity of a formula. Although this procedure uses a symbolic representation of LTSs, transitions of a given LTS are traversed one by one. In this paper, we propose a procedure which exploits the symbolic representation efficiently to traverse several transitions at once. We evaluate the procedure on models of a communication protocol from industry and a biological system. The results show it to be at least several times faster than the former one. Witness automata were first introduced to allow for compositional generation of test sequences. We propose two more possible uses. One is for the detection of multiple errors in a model by exploring the witness automaton for a formula, instead of only one, which is usually the case with a single witness. The other one is for the detection of previously unknown system properties. As witness automata can be rather large, we show how some existing tools could help in examining them through visualization and simulation.INDEX TERMS Automata, formal verification, logic, model checking.

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“…This relation is described in Section 7.8. A related approach has been presented by Meolic et al [31]: Witness and counterexample automata represent the superset of all finite and linear witnesses/counterexamples for a limited subset of CTL.…”

Section: K π |= Truementioning

confidence: 99%

Testing with model checkers: a survey

Fraser

Wotawa

Ammann

2008

Software Testing Verif & Rel

146

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Abstract.About a decade after the initial proposal to use model checkers for the generation of test cases we take a look at the achievements in this field of research. Model checkers are formal verification tools, capable of providing counterexamples to violated properties. Normally, these counterexamples are meant to guide an analyst when searching for the root cause of a property violation. They are, however, also very useful as test cases. Many different approaches have been presented, many problems have been solved, yet many issues remain. This survey paper reviews the state of the art in testing with model checkers.

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Witness and Counterexample Automata for ACTL

Cited by 10 publications

References 14 publications

Relating counterexamples to test cases in CTL model checking specifications

Relating counterexamples to test cases in CTL model checking specifications

Generating and Employing Witness Automata for ACTLW Formulae

Testing with model checkers: a survey

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