Specification-based testing of reactive software: A case study in technology transfer

Abstract We describe a case study to transfer a specificationbased testing system from research to practice. We did the case study in two steps: first we conducted a feasibility study in a laboratory setting to estimate the potential costs and benefits of using the system. Next we conducted a usability study in an industrial setting to determine whether it would be effective in practice. Our focus in the laboratory was on the basic technology; our focus in the industrial setting has necessarily been on customizing that technology for a specific application. The feasibility study gave us a cost-effective way to identify general, context-independent issues, while the later industrial experience revealed specific, context-dependent obstacles to the use of our technology.

[1]  David H. Pitt,et al.  The Derivation of Conformance Tests from LOTOS Specifications , 1990, IEEE Trans. Software Eng..

[2]  Lalita Jategaonkar Jagadeesan,et al.  Safety Property Verification of ESTEREL Programs and Applications to Telecommunications Software , 1995, CAV.

[3]  Anthony Hall,et al.  Seven myths of formal methods , 1990, IEEE Software.

[4]  Nicolas Halbwachs,et al.  Synchronous Programming of Reactive Systems , 1992, CAV.

[5]  Gérard Berry,et al.  The Esterel Synchronous Programming Language: Design, Semantics, Implementation , 1992, Sci. Comput. Program..

[6]  R. P. Kurshan,et al.  Computer Aided Verification , 1998, Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

[7]  T. Allen.  Managing the flow of technology , 1977 .

[8]  William E. Riddle,et al.  Software technology maturation , 1985, ICSE '85.

[9]  K. E. Martersteck,et al.  The 5ESS switching system: Introduction , 1985, AT&T Technical Journal.

[10]  Louise E. Moser,et al.  A graphical interval logic for specifying concurrent systems , 1994, TSEM.

[11]  John D. Musa,et al.  Software reliability - measurement, prediction, application , 1987, McGraw-Hill series in software engineering and technology.

[12]  David Harel,et al.  Statecharts: A Visual Formalism for Complex Systems , 1987, Sci. Comput. Program..

[13]  David Harel,et al.  Executable object modeling with statecharts , 1996, Proceedings of IEEE 18th International Conference on Software Engineering.

[14]  Giuseppe Scollo,et al.  Lotos specifications, their implementations and their tests , 1995 .

[15]  Zohar Manna,et al.  The Temporal Logic of Reactive and Concurrent Systems , 1991, Springer New York.

[16]  Mark A. Ardis,et al.  A Framework for Evaluating Specification Methods for Reactive Systems , 1995, 1995 17th International Conference on Software Engineering.

[17]  Bran Selic,et al.  Real-time object-oriented modeling , 1994, Wiley professional computing.

[18]  Marie-Claude Gaudel,et al.  Testing Can Be Formal, Too , 1995, TAPSOFT.

[19]  Pierre Wolper,et al.  Reasoning about infinite computation paths , 1983, 24th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (sfcs 1983).

[20]  Qing Yu,et al.  Oracles for checking temporal properties of concurrent systems , 1994, SIGSOFT '94.

[21]  Ioannis Parissis,et al.  Specification-based testing of synchronous software , 1996, SIGSOFT '96.

[22]  Pascal Raymond,et al.  The synchronous data flow programming language LUSTRE , 1991, Proc. IEEE.

[23]  Allen S. Lee.  A Scientific Methodology for MIS Case Studies , 1989, MIS Q..

[24]  Debra J. Richardson,et al.  TAOS: Testing with Analysis and Oracle Support , 1994, ISSTA '94.

[25]  Adam A. Porter,et al.  Experimental Software Engineering: A Report on the State of the Art , 1995, 1995 17th International Conference on Software Engineering.

[26]  Debra J. Richardson,et al.  Specification-based test oracles for reactive systems , 1992, International Conference on Software Engineering.

[27]  Lalita Jategaonkar Jagadeesan,et al.  A formal approach to reactive systems software: A telecommunications application in Esterel , 1996, Formal Methods Syst. Des..

[28]  Adam A. Porter,et al.  Specification-based Testing of Reactive Software: Tools and Experiments Experience Report , 1997, Proceedings of the (19th) International Conference on Software Engineering.