System and method for functional testing of distributed, component-based software

• US 6,505,342 B1
• Filed: 05/31/2000
• Issued: 01/07/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 05/31/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Corp. (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens Corporate Research Incorporated (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Hartmann, Jean S., Imoberdorf, Claudio
• Primary Examiner(s): Chaki, Kakali
• Assistant Examiner(s): WOOD, WILLIAM H
• Application Number:
  US09/583,597
• Time in Patent Office: 951 Days
• Field of Search: 717/100, 717/107, 717/124, 717/146, 717/125, 717/104, 717/136, 707/101, 707/513, 345/762, 345/763
• US Class Current: 717/104
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3688 for test execution, e.g. scheduling of test suites

Abstract

A system and method for functional testing of distributed, component-based software that includes modeling dynamic behavior of a plurality of components using a plurality of Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations; creating a plurality of normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations by converting the Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations into a normalized representation; creating a global behavioral model by combining the normalized Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations; mapping the global behavioral model to a Test Specification Language (TSL) test design; processing the Test Specification Language test design in a Test Design Environment to produce a plurality of Interface Test Language (ITL) test cases; mapping the ITL test cases to standard object-oriented code using an ITL compiler; generating a plurality of sink objects defined in an IDL file using a sink generator; generating an executable test driver containing a plurality of executable test cases using code from a test harness library and the above generated code using a standard object-oriented compiler; and executing the test cases with a test control center.

Claims

1. A method of functionally testing distributed, component-based software comprising the steps of:

modeling dynamic behavior of a plurality of components using a plurality of Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations;

creating a plurality of normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations by converting the Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations into a normalized representation;

creating a global behavioral model by combining the normalized Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations;

mapping the global behavioral model to a Test Specification Language (TSL) test design;

processing the Test Specification Language test design in a Test Design Environment to produce a plurality of Interface Test Language (ITL) test cases;

mapping the ITL test cases to object-oriented code using an ITL compiler;

generating a plurality of sink objects defined in an IDL file using a sink generator; and

generating an executable test driver including a plurality of executable test cases using code from a test harness library and the object-oriented code using an object-oriented compiler.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of executing the test cases with a test control center.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a plurality of states and transitions for defining all possible states and changes of state a component achieves during its lifetime.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation having one send event or receive event per transition.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation is defined using an enhanced Unified Modeling Language notation.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of defining one or more subsystems including components, by a user to specify an order in which components are to be combined in the global behavioral model.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the global behavioral model is composed by applying an enhanced version of an incremental composition and reduction algorithm.

8. A system for functionally testing distributed, component-based software, comprising:

a plurality of normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations constructed by converting a plurality of components modeled by a plurality of Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations into a normalized representation;

a global behavioral model constructed by combining the normalized Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations, the global behavioral model being mapped to a Test Specification Language (TSL) test design;

means for processing the Test Specification Language test design in a Test Design Environment to produce a plurality of Interface Test Language (ITL) test cases;

means for mapping the ITL test cases to object-oriented code using an ITL compiler;

means for generating a plurality of sink objects defined in an IDL file using a sink generator; and

means for generating an executable test driver including a plurality of executable test cases using code from a test harness library and the object-oriented code using a object-oriented compiler.

9. The system of claim 8, further comprising a test control center for executing the test cases.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a plurality of states and transitions for defining all possible states and changes of state a component achieves during its lifetime.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation having one send event or receive event per transition.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation is defined using an enhanced Unified Modeling Language notation.

13. The system of claim 8, further comprising one or more subsystems including components defined by a user to specify an order in which components are to be combined in the global behavioral model.

14. The system of claim 8, wherein the global behavioral model is composed by applying an enhanced version of an incremental composition and reduction algorithm.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein the test driver includes one or more sink objects for receiving responses from the component under test.

16. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for functionally testing distributed, component-based software , the method steps comprising:

modeling dynamic behavior of a plurality of components using a plurality of Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations;

creating a plurality of normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representations by converting the Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations into a normalized representation;

creating a global behavioral model by combining the normalized Unified Modeling Language based state machine representations;

mapping the global behavioral model to a Test Specification Language (TSL) test design;

processing the Test Specification Language test design in a Test Design Environment to produce a plurality of Interface Test Language (ITL) test cases;

mapping the ITL test cases to object-oriented code using an ITL compiler;

generating a plurality of sink objects defined in an IDL file using a sink generator; and

generating an executable test driver including a plurality of executable test cases using code from a test harness library and the object-oriented code using a object-oriented compiler.

17. The program storage device of claim 16, further comprising the step of executing the test cases with a test control center.

18. The program storage device of claim 16, wherein the Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a plurality of states and transitions for defining all possible states and changes of state a component achieves during its lifetime.

19. The program storage device of claim 16, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation includes a Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation having one send event or receive event per transition.

20. The program storage device of claim 16, wherein the normalized Unified Modeling Language-based state machine representation is defined using an enhanced Unified Modeling Language notation.

21. The program storage device of claim 16, further comprising the step of defining one or more subsystems including components, by a user to specify an order in which components are to be combined in the global behavioral model.

22. The program storage device of claim 16, wherein the global behavioral model is composed by applying an enhanced version of an incremental composition and reduction algorithm.