Publication Date:
2011-08-24
Description:
A Formal Test Representation Language and Tool for Functional Test Designs (TRL) is an automatic tool and a formal language that is used to implement the Category-Partition Method and produce the specification of test cases in the testing phase of software development. The Category-Partition Method is particularly useful in defining the inputs, outputs and purpose of the test design phase and combines the benefits of choosing normal cases with error exposing properties. Traceability can be maintained quite easily by creating a test design for each objective in the test plan. The effort to transform the test cases into procedures is simplified by using an automatic tool to create the cases based on the test design. The method allows the rapid elimination of undesired test cases from consideration, and easy review of test designs by peer groups. The first step in the category-partition method is functional decomposition, in which the specification and/or requirements are decomposed into functional units that can be tested independently. A secondary purpose of this step is to identify the parameters that affect the behavior of the system for each functional unit. The second step, category analysis, carries the work done in the previous step further by determining the properties or sub-properties of the parameters that would make the system behave in different ways. The designer should analyze the requirements to determine the features or categories of each parameter and how the system may behave if the category were to vary its value. If the parameter undergoing refinement is a data-item, then categories of this data-item may be any of its attributes, such as type, size, value, units, frequency of change, or source. After all the categories for the parameters of the functional unit have been determined, the next step is to partition each category's range space into mutually exclusive values that the category can assume. In choosing partition values, all possible kinds of values should be included, especially the ones that will maximize error detection. The purpose of the final step, partition constraint analysis, is to refine the test design specification so that only the technically effective and economically feasible test cases are implied. TRL is written in C-language to be machine independent. It has been successfully implemented on an IBM PC compatible running MS DOS, a Sun4 series computer running SunOS, an HP 9000/700 series workstation running HP-UX, a DECstation running DEC RISC ULTRIX, and a DEC VAX series computer running VMS. TRL requires 1Mb of disk space and a minimum of 84K of RAM. The documentation is available in electronic form in Word Perfect format. The standard distribution media for TRL is a 5.25 inch 360K MS-DOS format diskette. Alternate distribution media and formats are available upon request. TRL was developed in 1993 and is a copyrighted work with all copyright vested in NASA.
Keywords:
COMPUTER PROGRAMMING AND SOFTWARE
Type:
NPO-19279
Format:
text
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