Skip to main content

Automated Transition from Use Cases to UML State Machines to Support State-Based Testing

  • Conference paper
Modelling Foundations and Applications (ECMFA 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 6698))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Use cases are commonly used to structure and document requirements while UML state machine diagrams often describe the behavior of a system and serve as a basis to automate test case generation in many model-based testing (MBT) tools. Therefore, automated support for the transition from use cases to state machines would provide significant, practical help for testing system requirements. Additionally, traceability could be established through automated transformations, which could then be used for instance to link requirements to design decisions and test cases, and assess the impact of requirements changes. In this paper, we propose an approach to automatically generate state machine diagrams from use cases while establishing traceability links. Our approach is implemented in a tool, which we used to perform three case studies, including an industrial case study. The results show that high quality state machine diagrams can be generated, which can be manually refined at reasonable cost to support MBT. Automatically generated state machines showed to largely conform to the actual system behavior as evaluated by a domain expert.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Shafique, M., Labiche, Y.: A Systematic Review of Model Based Testing Tool Support. Carleton University, Technical Report SCE-10-04

    Google Scholar 

  2. Neto, A.C.D., Subramanyan, R., Vieira, M., Travassos, G.H.: A survey on model-based testing approaches: a systematic review. In: The 1st ACM International Workshop on Empirical Assessment of Software Engineering Languages and Technologies. ACM, Atlanta (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Yue, T., Briand, L.C., Labiche, Y.: Automatically Deriving a UML Analysis Model from a Use Case Model. Simula Research Laboratory, Technical Report 2010-15 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Yue, T., Briand, L.C., Labiche, Y.: An Automated Approach to Transform Use Cases into Activity Diagrams. In: Kühne, T., Selic, B., Gervais, M.-P., Terrier, F. (eds.) ECMFA 2010. LNCS, vol. 6138, pp. 337–353. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Cisco Norway (Tandberg), http://www.tandberg.no/

  6. IEEE Std. 830-1998, IEEE Standard for Software Requirement Specification (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Olsen, G.K., Oldevik, J.: Scenarios of traceability in model to text transformations. In: Akehurst, D.H., Vogel, R., Paige, R.F. (eds.) ECMDA-FA. LNCS, vol. 4530, pp. 144–156. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Yue, T., Briand, L.C., Labiche, Y.: A use case modeling approach to facilitate the transition towards analysis models: Concepts and empirical evaluation. In: Schürr, A., Selic, B. (eds.) MODELS 2009. LNCS, vol. 5795, pp. 484–498. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Ali, S., Hemmati, H., Holt, N.E., Arisholm, E., Briand, L.: Model Transformations as a Strategy to Automate Model-Based Testing - A Tool and Industrial Case Studies, Simula Research Laboratory, Technical Report (2010-01) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Smartesting, http://www.smartesting.com

  11. Yue, T., Briand, L.C., Labiche, Y.: A systematic review of transformation approaches between user requirements and analysis models. Accepted for publication in Requirements Engineering (Online first) (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Insfrán, E., Pastor, O., Wieringa, R.: Requirements Engineering-Based Conceptual Modelling. Requirements Engineering 7, 61–72 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Some, S.S.: An approach for the synthesis of state transition graphs from use cases, vol. 1, pp. 456–462. CSREA Press, Las Vegas (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Yue, T., Briand, L., Labiche, Y.: Facilitating the Transition from Use Case Models to Analysis Models: Approach and Experiments, Simula Research Laboratory, Technical Report (2010-12) (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Bittner, K., Spence, I.: Use Case Modeling. Addison-Wesley, Boston (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  16. OMG: UML 2.2 Superstructure Specification (formal/2009-02-04)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Brown, E.K., Miller, J.E.: Syntax: a linguistic introduction to sentence structure. Routledge, London (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Kermeta: Kermeta metaprogramming environment

    Google Scholar 

  19. OMG: OCL 2.0 Specification

    Google Scholar 

  20. Eclipse Foundation: Eclipse Modeling Framework

    Google Scholar 

  21. The Stanford Natural Language Processing Group: The Stanford Parser version 1.6

    Google Scholar 

  22. Gomaa, H.: Designing Concurrent, Distributed, and Real-Time Applications with UML. Addison-Wesley, Reading (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Princeton University, WordNet: A lexical database for English, http://wordnet.princeton.edu/

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Yue, T., Ali, S., Briand, L. (2011). Automated Transition from Use Cases to UML State Machines to Support State-Based Testing. In: France, R.B., Kuester, J.M., Bordbar, B., Paige, R.F. (eds) Modelling Foundations and Applications. ECMFA 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6698. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21470-7_9

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21470-7_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-21469-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-21470-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics