An Integrated Refinement and Testing Method for Stream X-machines

Abstract. Over the last decade, stream X-machines have been used in order to specify a range of systems. One of the strengths of this approach is that, under certain well defined conditions, it is possible to produce a test set that is guaranteed to determine the correctness of the implementation under test. However, if X-machines are to be used in practice as a tool for specification and test generation, there needs to be ways of developing existing specifications into more complex and more detailed versions through a process of refinement. Associated with the refinement of the specification, there needs to be methods of refining the corresponding test sets, that is to construct the test set in parallel with the specification and to distribute the testing into smaller chunks, with major cost and time savings. A few such specification and testing refinements of X-machine have already been investigated. This paper introduces a new type of X-machine refinement, called simple covering, which expands the input-output behaviour of an existing X-machine. Associated with this process, the corresponding refinement of the test set is described and a method of testing X-machines constructed as simple coverings is developed.

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