Testing Unified Modeling Language (UML) Designs

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

PROPOSAL NUMBER: 0203285 TITLE: Testing UML Designs PI: Robert France The proposed research is concerned with developing mechanisms that support the generation of design-level test cases from UML design models. The generated test cases are intended to be used in UML design reviews and inspections as a means for evaluating UML models and identifying errors in software designs. Developing a UML design testing approach and test generation support requires addressing the following issues: (1) Providing an analyzable representation of UML models and test artifacts, and (2) providing a flexible test generation mechanism. To address these issues the proposed research effort is structured into the following research activities: (1) Deriving test objectives from test-oriented formalizations of Class and Collaboration Diagrams. (2) Defining strategies for creating test objectives. These strategies will be expressed in terms of model coverage goals. (3) Providing techniques that can be partially automated for systematically generating test cases from test objectives. (4) Assessing the effectiveness of the design testing technique developed in this research. This research will produce results that can be used to develop industrial-strength techniques and tools for evaluating UML designs. The results produced by this research will also deepen understanding of how OO designs can be formally interpreted and evaluated.