![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Introduction
Testing is one of the most important steps in the development of a new product. Often, it is also very time consuming and costly. As part of the Conformance Testing Methodology and Framework, the Tree and Tabular Combined Notation (TTCN) has been defined as a formal language for test suite specification. A test suite consists of four basic parts: The test suite overview, the declarations, the constraints and the dynamic behavior description.
In the TTCN Suite, TTCN test suite generation is supported by TTCN Link and Autolink. They both use an SDL specification as the basis for test generation, but they differ in their functionality.
TTCN Link generates the TTCN declarations part automatically and you use it for interactive building of test cases in the dynamic part.
Autolink is embedded in the SDL Explorer. In addition to the SDL specification, it uses MSCs for test purpose descriptions. With this input, Autolink generates the declarations, constraints and dynamic behavior description parts of a TTCN test suite automatically.
In comparison, the test generation features of Autolink are superior to the ones of TTCN Link. If for some reason the test purpose description with MSCs is not applicable, then you should use TTCN Link. In any case, test cases built with TTCN Link can be merged with test cases generated by Autolink.
TTCN Link - Generation of Declarations
TTCN Link automatically generates the TTCN declarations part based on an SDL specification. The default dynamic behavior table is also generated. It contains timeout and otherwise statements for each PCO, which will ensure that any incorrect response from the implementation under test always will give a FAIL verdict as a result from the test case. After the default and constraints tables have been generated, you can interactively build test cases.
When you use TTCN Link, there are four (five) phases involved:
- In the SDL Editor, you prepare an SDL specification.
- In the Organizer, you generate a TTCN Link application.
- In the TTCN Suite, you use TTCN Link for generating the declarations part.
- In the TTCN Suite, you interactively build test cases.
- Optionally, you may also merge the test suite with a TTCN-MP file, possibly generated by Autolink.
For more information about TTCN Link, see Using TTCN Link.
Autolink - Generation of a Test Suite
Autolink can be used for automatic generation of TTCN test suites based on an SDL specification and a number of MSCs. The steps involved when you use Autolink are:
- In the SDL Editor, you specify the SDL system to be used.
- In the Organizer, you generate an SDL Explorer.
- In the SDL Explorer, you define a number of traces through the SDL system for which you want to derive test cases. Each trace is stored as an MSC. Alternatively, you may create the MSCs manually in the MSC Editor or generate them with the help of the SDL Simulator.
- In a text editor, you define an Autolink configuration. The configuration tells Autolink how to map SDL signals and signal parameters onto TTCN constraint names, and how to group test cases and test steps.
- In the Explorer, you generate intermediate representations of the test cases and constraints from the MSCs. This can either be done by state space exploration or by direct translation to TTCN.
- In the Explorer, you may modify the generated constraints. Afterwards, the result is saved in a TTCN-MP file.
- The TTCN-MP file can be opened in the TTCN Suite, and to complete the test suite, the test suite overview has to be generated. On UNIX, you have to generate it explicitly. In Windows, the overview is generated automatically, for example before you print.
For more information about Autolink, see Using Autolink.
http://www.ibm.com/rational |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |