Model-based testing for concurrent systems with labelled event structures

• Published in: Software testing, verification & reliability Vol. 24; no. 7; pp. 558 - 590
• Main Authors: de León, Hernán Ponce, Haar, Stefan, Longuet, Delphine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2014; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc; Wiley
• Series: Tests and Proofs in Model-based Testing
• Subjects: Algorithms; Blocking; Buildings; Computer Science; Concurrency; conformance relation; Construction; event structures; Formal Languages and Automata Theory; Formalism; Mathematical models; model-based testing; Semantics; Software Engineering; strong concurrency; true concurrency; weak concurrency
• ISSN: 0960-0833; 1099-1689
• DOI: 10.1002/stvr.1543

SUMMARYWe propose a theoretical testing framework and a test generation algorithm for concurrent systems specified with true‐concurrency models, such as Petri nets or networks of automata. The semantic model of computation of such formalisms is labelled event structures, which allow to represent concurrency explicitly. We introduce the notions of strong and weak concurrency: strongly concurrent events must be concurrent in the implementation, while weakly concurrent ones may eventually be ordered. The ioco type conformance relations for sequential systems rely on the observation of sequences of actions and blockings; thus, they are not capable of capturing and exploiting concurrency of non‐sequential behaviours. We propose an extension of ioco for labelled event structures, named co‐ioco, allowing to deal with strong and weak concurrency. We extend the notions of test cases and test execution to labelled event structures and give a test generation algorithm building a complete test suite for co‐ioco. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. We propose a theoretical testing framework and test generation algorithm for concurrent systems specified with true concurrency models introducing the notions of strong and weak concurrency: strongly concurrent events must be concurrent in the implementation, while weakly concurrent ones may eventually be ordered. We propose an extension of the ioco conformance relation for labelled event structures, named co‐ioco, allowing to deal with strong and weak concurrency. We extend the notions of test cases and test execution, and give a test generation algorithm building a complete test suite.