Turker, U.C., Hierons, R.M. orcid.org/0000-0002-4771-1446, Barlas, G. et al. (1 more author) (2023) Incomplete adaptive distinguishing sequences for non-deterministic FSMs. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 49 (9). pp. 4371-4389. ISSN 0098-5589
Abstract
The increasing complexity and criticality of software systems have led to growing interest in automated test generation. One of the most promising approaches is to use model-based testing (MBT), in which test automation is based on a model of the implementation under test (IUT) , with much of the work concerning finite state machine (FSM) models. Many FSM-based test generation techniques use, possibly adaptive, sequences to check the state of the IUT. Of particular interest are adaptive distinguishing sequences (ADSs) because their use can lead to relatively small tests. However, not all systems possess an ADS. In this work, we generalise the notion of incomplete ADSs to non-deterministic partial and observable FSMs. We show that the problem of checking the existence of a set of k incomplete ADSs that separates every pair of states is PSPACE-hard. Further, we generalise the notion of invertible sequences to non-deterministic partial and observable FSMs and show how invertible sequences can be used to derive additional incomplete ADSs. We propose a novel algorithm to generate incomplete ADSs and describe the results of experiments that evaluated its performance. The results indicate that the proposed method can generate sequences to identify states of the IUT and is faster and can process larger FSMs than other existing methods.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Software engineering/software/program verification; software engineering/testing and debugging; software engineering/test design; non-deterministic finite state machines; adaptive distinguishing sequences/tests |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/R025134/2 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council EP/V026801/2 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2023 15:41 |
Last Modified: | 04 Oct 2024 13:44 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1109/TSE.2023.3291137 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200869 |
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