An EFSM-based test generation for validation of SDL specifications

Abstract

Existing techniques for testing an SDL specification mainly allow for either black box simulation or conformance testing to verify that the behavior of an implementation matches its corresponding model. However, this relies on the potentially hazardous assumption that the model is completely correct. We propose a test generation framework that can accomplish conformance verification as well as coverage criteria-driven white box testing of the specification itself. This approach builds on earlier work which established how to translate SDL processes into standard EFSMs and identify "hot spots" - nodes or edges in the EFSM which should be prioritized during testing to effectively increase coverage. Our technique generates test sequences intended to cover selected hot spots; we address the possible infeasibility of such a test sequence by allowing for its rejection decided by a constraint solver and re-generation of an alternate test sequence to the hot spot. In this paper, we present our EFSM translation and test generation tool and provide a case study demonstrating the effectiveness of our coverage-based test sequence selection.