PTTAC: Passive Testing Tool for Asynchronous Systems

This paper presents a tool, called PTTAC, that automatizes a formal framework to perform passive testing for systems where there is an asynchronous communications channel between the tester and the system. Given a property, the methodology allows us to check that a trace being observed satisfies that property. The proposed solution checks properties against traces in polynomial time, with a low need for storage. It makes the methodology very suitable for real-time passive testing. The focus of this paper is on PTTAC that helps to perform this process, allowing to analyze the observations with respect to different properties defined by the user in a user friendly environment. This paper discusses the design and implementation of PTTAC. It also shows how the tool has been used to evaluate the efficacy and the usefulness of the technique implemented in PTTAC by means of the analysis of the behaviour of a protocol.

[1]  Rance Cleaveland,et al.  Using formal specifications to support testing , 2009, CSUR.

[2]  Mercedes G. Merayo,et al.  Formal passive testing of timed systems: theory and tools , 2012, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[3]  Amel Mammar,et al.  Using Testing Techniques for Vulnerability Detection in C Programs , 2011, ICTSS.

[4]  Ana R. Cavalli,et al.  Timed Extended Invariants for the Passive Testing of Web Services , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Conference on Web Services.

[5]  Lionel C. Briand,et al.  Is mutation an appropriate tool for testing experiments? , 2005, ICSE.

[6]  Steve Northover,et al.  SWT : the standard widget toolkit , 2004 .

[7]  Ana R. Cavalli,et al.  New approaches for passive testing using an Extended Finite State Machine specification , 2003, Inf. Softw. Technol..

[8]  Ana R. Cavalli,et al.  A passive testing approach based on invariants: application to the WAP , 2005, Comput. Networks.

[9]  A. J. Offutt A practical system for mutation testing: help for the common programmer , 1994, Proceedings., International Test Conference.

[10]  David Lee,et al.  Passive testing and applications to network management , 1997, Proceedings 1997 International Conference on Network Protocols.

[11]  David A. Carrington,et al.  A Tale of Two Paradigms: Formal Methods and Software Testing , 1994, Z User Workshop.

[12]  Robert M. Hierons,et al.  Passive Testing with Asynchronous Communications , 2013, FMOODS/FORTE.

[13]  Wolfgang Grieskamp,et al.  Model‐based quality assurance of protocol documentation: tools and methodology , 2011, Softw. Test. Verification Reliab..

[14]  W. Eric Wong,et al.  Mutation Testing Applied to Validate SDL Specifications , 2004, TestCom.

[15]  Robert M. Hierons,et al.  Mutation Testing , 2010, Encyclopedia of Software Engineering.

[16]  Jonas Mellin,et al.  Test Case Generation for Mutation-based Testing of Timeliness , 2006, Electron. Notes Theor. Comput. Sci..