An approach for supporting system-level test scenarios generation from textual use cases

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for system-level test scenarios generation from use cases in text form. Test scenarios are linear sequences of events used as intermediate representations toward complete test cases. A restricted form of natural language is used for use cases description. We start by generating control flow-based state machines from each use case. These state machines are then connected in a global system-level state machine according to derived sequencing relations between use cases. We infer sequencing relations based on a comparison of use cases pre-conditions and post-conditions. Test scenarios are generated using depth-first traversal of the generated control flow-based state machines according to criteria inspired from traditional white-box code coverage.