An event-based approach to generate test scenarios

Testing is one of the most important and expensive activity in the software development life cycle. In order to save cost and time, model based testing approaches are used. In these approaches, software models like UML, SDL, Z, state diagrams, data flow diagrams, control flow diagrams, etc are used to derive test-cases and test scenarios. These software models specify the desired behaviour of the system under test (SUT). But using events is more logical way to model SUT of event-based systems. Thus, this paper presents a model-based testing approach for event-based systems using events as starting point. Events taking place in the SUT are documented in the proposed Event templates. An Event-flow model is built from event templates. Event-flow model is represented as Event-flow graph. Deep breath-first search is then applied on Event-flow graph to identify the test scenarios. The proposed technique can be very effective especially for real time systems where lots of events are taking place. The paper uses Automatic Production Environment case study to illustrate the entire process.