A specification-based adaptive test case generation strategy for open operating system standards

The paper presents a specification based adaptive test case generation (SBATCG) method for integration testing in an open operating system standards environment. In the SBATCG method, templates describing abstract state transitions are derived from a model based specification, and the templates are refined to the internal structure of each implementation. We adopt the Z notation, one of the most widely used formal specification languages. We conducted mutation analysis to study the fault exposure abilities of the SBATCG method and that of a strategy based only on a specification. In our experiment, we used a Z version of the ITRON2 real time multi task operating system specification and two commercially available ITRON2 implementations. The results of this equipment show that the SBATCG method can achieve a higher fault detecting ability than can the strategy using only a specification.