Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3472

Tool Interfaces
14 Tools for Test Case Generation 429
As outlined above, AGEDIS is based on a specification given in AML. It is able
to execute the generated test suite in a distributed environment with components
written in Java, C or C++. Widely accepted formats like XML and the open
interface structure of AGEDIS offer easy access to extensions and variations of
the framework.
Summary
AGEDIS is currently not obtainable for academic use. The list of available publications
is also rather small, basically only the motley selection from the AGEDIS
website is accessible. Decisions regarding further propagation and succeeding
projects will determine the progression of the toolset. The main strength of
AGEDIS is its open and user friendly embedding of the theory in a UML-based
environment. A related modeling concept is the U2TP (UML Testing Profile)
which is about to find its way into UML 2.0 and will therefore gain a great attention
by the test-tool vendors. See chapter 17 for more information. Furthermore
itisbasedonUML2.0conceptsandinthatsensebetterequippedtobecomethe
favored test-related modeling language in the UML community. Nonetheless the
open concept of AGEDIS may pay off and further development (e.g. regarding
dynamic object behavior, converge to U2TP) can make AGEDIS an interesting
UML-based testing environment for distributed systems.
14.2.14 TestComposer
Introduction
TVEDA and TGV constitute the basis of TestComposer, which was commercially
released in 1999 as a component of ObjectGeode by Verilog. In December
1999 Telelogic acquired Verilog. Together with the Tau toolset, in which
AutoLink is the test component (also Telelogic), they form the two major SDL
toolsets. TVEDA was integrated in the test purpose generation process. Some
extensions were applied to facilitate the processing of multi-process specifications
(TVEDA was only designed for single-processes). The test case generation
was taken over by the TGV algorithms.
Test Generation Process
The whole testing process is based on an SDL specification of a (possibly distributed)
system. Any block within the SDL specification can be identified as
the SUT. The channels which are connected to the block become PCOs (Points
of Control and Observation). In the case of a distributed system TestComposer
is restricted to a monolithic tester, i.e. one tester takes care of the whole testing
process.