Abstract
Over the past five years our group has developed a tool that automatically generates conformance test scripts from a combination of Message Sequence Charts (MSCs), specifying dynamic behaviour, and Protocol Data Units (PDUs), specifying data formats. This paper outlines how tests are derived from MSCs and PDU specifications, and summarises different test strategies. It describes the testing required to prove conformance of various MSC language features ranging from time constraints to MSC variables, in-line expressions and high-level MSCs. We cover test generation for both single process test scripting and concurrent test scripting, where a test is distributed across autonomous processes, co-ordinating through additional messaging. All of the above aspects have been implemented in our tool that is in widespread use across Motorola. Tool support has not only resulted in cycle-time benefits for test preparation, but quality improvement in the testing process, improved test coverage, and validation of requirements specification.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
R. Alur, G. J. Holzmann, and D. Peled. An analyser for Message Sequence Charts. Software Concepts and Tools, 17(2):70–77, 1996. Information is available from http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/what/ubet/.
AT&T Labs-Research. DOT on-line reference pages. Information is available from http://www.research.att.com/~north/graphviz/.
B-novative. daVinci graph visualisation tool. Information is available from http://www.b-novative.com/.
P. Baker, C. Jervis, and D. King. An optimised algorithm for test script generation. Patent GB18137.0, 2000.
P. Baker, C. Jervis, and W. P. R. Mitchell. Method of generating coordinating messages for distributed test scripts. Patent GB18138.8, 2000.
ETSI. Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) standard. European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Available from http://www.etsi.org/.
ETSI. Methods for Testing and Specification; The Testing and Control Notation version 3 (TTCN-3); Part 1: TTCN-3 Core Language. European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), 2001. Available from http://www.etsi.org/.
J. Grabowski, B. Koch, M. Schmitt, and D. Hogrefe. SDL and MSC based test generation for distributed test architectures. In R. Dssouli, G. v. Bochmann, and Y. Lahav, editors, In: SDL’99-The next Millennium. Elsevier, June 1999. Available from http://www.itm.mu-luebeck.de/.
ITU-T. Specification and Description Language (SDL), ITU-T Recommendation Z.100. International Telecommunications Union — Telecommunications Standards Sector (ITU-T), 1996. Available from http://www.itu.int.
ITU-T. TTCN-2 standard, Conformance Testing Methodology and Framework-Part 3: The Tree and Tabular Combined Notation (TTCN), ITU-T Recommendation X.292. International Telecommunications Union — Telecommunications Standards Sector (ITU-T), 1997. Available from http://www.itu.int.
ITU-T. Message Sequence Charts (MSC), ITU-T Recommendation Z.120. International Telecommunications Union — Telecommunications Standards Sector (ITU-T), 2001. Available from http://www.itu.int.
W. P. R. Mitchell. Characterising concurrent tests based on Message Sequence Chart requirements. In B. Bondar, editor, Proceedings of Applied Telecommunication Symposium (ATS), 2001.
Motorola, Inc. Dimetra. Information is available from http://www.motorola.com/ cgiss/emea/tetra/home.html.
Telelogic AB. Tau 4.3 Reference Manual. Sweden. Available from http://www.telelogic.com/.
Teradyne Inc. TestMaster Reference Manual, 2000. Available from http://www.teradyne.com/.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Baker, P., Bristow, P., Jervis, C., King, D., Mitchell, B. (2003). Automatic Generation of Conformance Tests from Message Sequence Charts. In: Sherratt, E. (eds) Telecommunications and beyond: The BroaderApplicability of SDL and MSC. SAM 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2599. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36573-7_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-36573-7_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-00877-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-36573-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive