A Formal Definition of Software Testing Based on Fuzzy Measure

Software systems are faced with serious dependability crisis. It brings out a series of software dependability related research areas and the trusted software testing process is one of the core issues. In order to conduct the trusted software testing research, a high priority issue to be solved is how to create a formal model of software testing describing the nature of software testing and then to provide a theoretical basis for the related studies. In the paper, a study was started from the essence of software testing, with a series of formal definitions such as software features, software requirements, software use-case set, software test requirements and software test case set, and with the definitions of four basic activities of a software testing process, a formal definition of software testing was proposed based on the fuzzy measure concept, with which test execution is expressed as a fuzzy truth degree measure to a proposition in a certain domain. As a result, the formal definition provides a new approach to study software testing with highlighting the nature and essence of it, and also provides a theoretical model for the subsequent research on the evolution of software testing quality and software testing dependability.