TCGen

TCGen: Test Case Generator and Error Diagnostics

The TCGen project is carried out in co-operation with Verified Systems International GmbH, funded by BIG Bremer Investitions-Gesellschaft mbH (research grant 2INNO1015B).

The goal of this project is to combine two closely related technological novelties and integrate them into the test tool RT-Tester:

• Model-based test case generation: Facilitates the automatic derivation of the required test cases and associated test data from software specifications as generated with commonly used CASE tools (requirements tests), as well as from the source code to be tested (code coverage tests).
• Automated support for error diagnostics: Methods which help the test experts to find faults in the source code which caused the errors observed during testing.

Methods for model-based test case generation have been pursued by different research groups and tool vendors for nearly a decade. But only the progress that was achieved in different research fields of computer science and mathematics during the last two years facilitate an implementation demonstratably fit for industrial use.

The recently discovered relation between test case generation and error diagnostics methods led to further investigation: Algorithms used for generation of test data in particular test situations can also be used to determine the potential impact of a software component to an observed error.

Project Team

• Jan Peleska (project manager)
• Christof Efkemann
• Helge Löding

Publications within the context of TCGen

Jan Peleska and Helge Löding:
Symbolic and Abstract Interpretation for C/C++ Programs.
Extended version of a submission to 3rd intl Workshop on Systems Software Verification (SSV08).
PDF file

Jan Peleska and Cornelia Zahlten:
Integrated Automated Test Case Generation and Static Analysis.
In Proceedings of the QA+Test 2007 International Conference on QA+Testing Embedded Systems, Bilbao (Spain) 17th - 19th October 2007. Best Paper Award.
PowerPoint presentation slides

Jan Peleska, Helge Löding and Tatiana Kotas:
Test Automation Meets Static Analysis.
In Rainer Koschke, Otthein Herzog, Karl-Heinz Rödiger and Marc Ronthaler (eds.): Proceedings of the INFORMATIK 2007, Band 2, 24. - 27. September, Bremen (Germany). ISBN 978-3-88579-204-8, ISSN 1617-5468, pp 280-286.
PDF file