More testable properties

Testing remains a widely used validation technique for software systems. However, recent needs in software development (e.g., in terms of security concerns) may require to extend this technique to address a larger set of properties. In this article, we explore the set of testable properties within t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal on software tools for technology transfer Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 407 - 437
Main Authors: Falcone, Yliès, Fernandez, Jean-Claude, Jéron, Thierry, Marchand, Hervé, Mounier, Laurent
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.08.2012
Springer Nature B.V
Springer Verlag
Subjects:
Classification
Computer engineering
Computer programs
Computer Science
Ictss 2010
Security
Software
Software development
Software Engineering
Software Engineering/Programming and Operating Systems
Synthesis
Test methods
Testability
Theory of Computation
Safety-progress
Testability
Test
Property
ISSN:1433-2779, 1433-2787
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Testing remains a widely used validation technique for software systems. However, recent needs in software development (e.g., in terms of security concerns) may require to extend this technique to address a larger set of properties. In this article, we explore the set of testable properties within the Safety-Progress classification where testability means to establish by testing that a relation, between the tested system and the property under scrutiny, holds. We characterize testable properties w.r.t. several relations of interest. For each relation, we give a sufficient condition for a property to be testable. Then, we study and delineate a fine-grain characterization of testable properties: for each Safety-Progress class, we identify the subset of testable properties and their corresponding test oracle. Furthermore, we address automatic test generation for the proposed framework by providing a general synthesis technique that allows to obtain canonical testers for the testable properties in the Safety-Progress classification. Moreover, we show how the usual notion of quiescence can be taken into account in our general framework, and, how quiescence improves the testability results. Then, we list some existing testing approaches that could benefit from this work by addressing a wider set of properties. Finally, we propose Java-PT, a prototype Java toolbox that implements the results introduced in this article.
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ISSN:1433-2779
1433-2787
DOI:10.1007/s10009-011-0220-z