Abstract
Use cases are widely used for requirements description in the software engineering practice. As a use case event flow is often written in natural language, it lacks tools for automatic analysis or processing. In this paper, we extend previous work that proposes an automatic strategy for generating test cases from use cases written in a Controlled Natural Language (CNL), which is a subset of English that can be processed and translated into a formal representation. Here we propose a state-based CNL for describing use cases. We translate state-based use case descriptions into CSP processes from which test cases can be automatically generated. In addition, we show how a similar notation can be used to specify test selection via the definition of state-based test purposes, which are also translated into CSP processes. Test generation and selection are mechanised by running refinement checking verifications using the CSP processes for use cases and test purposes. All the steps of the strategy are integrated into a tool that provides a GUI for authoring use cases and test purposes described in the proposed CNL, so the formal CSP notation is totally hidden from the test designer. We illustrate our tool and techniques with a running example.
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Nogueira, S., Araujo, H.L.S., Araujo, R.B.S., Iyoda, J., Sampaio, A. (2016). Automatic Generation of Test Cases and Test Purposes from Natural Language. In: Cornélio, M., Roscoe, B. (eds) Formal Methods: Foundations and Applications. SBMF 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9526. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29473-5_9
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