IBM
Contents Index Previous Next



Introduction to TTCN Access


A TTCN test suite can be looked upon as a formal description of a collection of test sequences where each test sequence involves signals and values. The abstract test suite contains formal definitions of these signals and values as well as a structural description of each test sequence. A common formal notation used to describe these test sequences, as well as all the other items in an abstract test suite, is TTCN.

TTCN Access is a C++ application programmers interface towards an arbitrary abstract test suite written in TTCN and incorporated in the TTCN Suite. TTCN Access reveals the content of the test suite in a high level abstraction and allows various users to access the content in a read-only manner.

TTCN Access is a platform for writing applications related to an abstract test suite such as:

By using TTCN Access, a variety of applications can be implemented that will ease the maintenance of abstract test suites and the development of executable test suites. TTCN Access is an easy-to-use application programmers interface that provides the required functionality for applications in these areas.

Terms Used in This Document:

General Concepts

The easiest, and simplest way of describing TTCN Access would be to state that TTCN Access is a TTCN compiler. Unfortunately this statement is not fully true and also somewhat misleading as it might, conceptually, bring the reader (and TTCN Access users) towards the domain of executable test suites and thereby not reveal all the other possibilities that TTCN Access brings. A more correct statement would thereby be that TTCN Access is a half compiler, more precisely the first phase of a compiler, often called the front-end. For a general explanation of compiler theory and compiler front-ends, see Basic Compiling Theory. The fact is that the TTCN to C compiler is built on top of TTCN Access.


http://www.ibm.com/rational
Contents Index Previous Next