The proposal of a novel software testing framework
This work addresses the need for automated test oracle generation in software testing, particularly for object-oriented systems, but it is incremental as it builds on existing formal methods without major breakthroughs.
The authors tackled the problem of generating test oracles for specification-based software testing by developing a technique that translates VDM++ specifications into C++ test oracle classes, integrated into a functional testing framework, and illustrated it with a triangle problem case study.
Software testing is normally used to check the validity of a program. Test oracle performs an important role in software testing. The focus in this research is to perform class level test by introducing a testing framework. A technique is developed to generate test oracle for specification-based software testing using Vienna Development Method (VDM++) formal language. A three stage translation process, of VDM++ specifications of container classes to C++ test oracle classes, is described in this paper. It is also presented that how derived test oracle is integrated into a proposed functional testing framework. This technique caters object oriented features such as inheritance and aggregation, but concurrency is not considered in this work. Translation issues, limitations and evaluation of the technique are also discussed. The proposed approach is illustrated with the help of popular triangle problem case study.