On-the-fly conformance testing using SPIN

In this paper we report on the construction of a tool for conformance testing based on Spin. The Spin tool has been adapted such that it can derive the building blocks for constructing test cases, called test primitives, from systems described in Promela. The test primitives support the on-the-fly conformance testing process. Traditional derivation of tests from formal specifications suffers from the state-space explosion problem. Spin is one of the most advanced model checkers with respect to handling large state spaces. This advantage of Spin has been used for the derivation of test primitives from a Promela description. To reduce the state space, we introduce the on-the-fly testing framework. One of the components within this framework is the Primer. The Primer is responsible for deriving test primitives from a model of a system according to a well-defined and complete testing theory. Algorithms are presented which enable us to derive test primitives from a Promela description. These algorithms have been implemented in the adapted version of the Spin tool which acts as the Primer in the framework. Promising experiments have been carried out on an example case study. As a result of this study it is concluded that it is possible to derive test primitives automatically from Promela descriptions, construct test cases from these test primitives, and execute the test cases on-the-fly. © 2000 Springer-Verlag.