Combining UML sequence and state machine diagrams for data-flow based integration testing

  • Authors:

  • Lionel Briand;Yvan Labiche;Yanhua Liu

  • Affiliations:

  • Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg;SQUALL Lab, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada;SQUALL Lab, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada

  • Venue:
  • ECMFA'12 Proceedings of the 8th European conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

UML interaction diagrams are used during integration testing. However, this will typically not find all integration faults as some incorrect behaviors are only exhibited in certain states of the collaborating classes during interactions. State machine diagrams are typically used to model the behavior of state-dependent objects. This paper presents a technique to enhance interaction testing by accounting for state-based behavior as well as data-flow information. UML sequence and state machine diagrams are combined into a control-flow graph to then generate integration test cases, adapting well-known coupling-based, data-flow testing criteria. In order to assess our technique, we developed a prototype tool and applied it on a small case study. The results suggest that the proposed technique is more cost-effective than the most closely related approach reported in the literature, which only relies on control flow analysis.