Systematic software testing approaches for specification and maintenacne phases

Abstract

Software testing has been perceived as a critical element of quality assurance. However, there are many problems to place software testing on the center of mainstream software engineering. Currently, testers face the difficulty of deriving test cases from specifications which enable the testers to select test cases even before codes are produced. The next problem is the lack of revalidation methods to retest modified programs during maintenance phase despite its importance. Finally, a mechanism for integrating multiple techniques should be provided in order to increase the quality of software because there is no single uniform approach to testing. In this dissertation, we deal with two testing methods aimed at developing approaches to specification-based test case selection and revalidating through retesting during maintenance phase. In addition, we show that two proposed testing methods are complementary by integrating them in the coherent manner. In the research direction of specification-based testing, we consider algebraic specifications for designing and generation test cases and suggest two testing strategies, signature-based testing and axiom-based testing. Signature-based testing depends on the syntactic information of algebraic specifications for developing test cases. Axiom-based testing is designed to check the consistency of the module with axioms prescribed in the specifications and can complement the signature-based testing for validatingwhether the molule possesses the required properties. The testing strategies to be presented relies on the formal test specifications written in test specification language, ALTEL which is designed for controlling test case generation. Software revalidation through retesting during the maintenance phase is essential for establishing confidence in the reliability of the modified programs. In the research direction of retesting during maintenance, we present a testing criterion and techniques for revalidating modifi...