TITLE:
Testability Guidance Using a Process Modeling
AUTHORS:
Zuhoor Al-Khanjari, Naoufel Kraiem
KEYWORDS:
Testability; Observability; Controllability; Domain-to-Range Ratio; Fault Size; Method Engineering; Situational Method; Process Representation; MAP
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Software Engineering and Applications,
Vol.6 No.12,
December
25,
2013
ABSTRACT: Software testability took a lot of
interests of software community. Indeed, this concept has been interpreted in a
variety of ways. One interpretation is concerned with the extent of the
modifications a program component requires, so that the entire behavior of the
component is observable and controllable. Another interpretation is the ease
with which faults, if present in a program, can be revealed and estimated by
the testing process and the propagation, infection and execution (PIE) model.
It has been suggested that this particular interpretation of testability might
be linked with two concepts: 1) the metric domain-to-range ratio (DRR), i.e. the ratio of the cardinality of the set of all inputs (the
domain) to the cardinality of the set of all outputs (the range) and 2) the semantic fault size. First, this
paper describes the connections between 1) the domain-to-range ratio and the
observability and controllability aspects of testability and 2) the PIE model and fault size. The
main goal of the work described here, is to seek greater understanding of
testability in general and, ultimately, to find easier ways of determining it.
Second, in this paper we try to model the PIE estimation using formalism for process
representation system which is MAP formalism. We also use this process model to
elaborate and to present the relationship between testability, PIE, DRR and
fault size. Our aim is to enhance the guidance mechanisms of the process
execution. After clarifying the existing relationship between semantic fault
and testability, we improve the MAP model by adding qualitative criteria. We
then offer a way to express maps to offer an automatic guidance of the map.