Protocol test sequence generation using UIO and BUIO

With the proliferation of computer communications, new protocols are introduced at an increasing rate. It is therefore more important than ever before that efficient methods be available to verify the protocol implementations' correctness and conformity to the specifications. In protocol conformance testing, it is crucial to have short and efficient protocol test sequences for faster processing. We introduce here two approaches to generate test sequences; one based on UIO (unique input/output) sequence, and the other using BUIO (backward UIO) sequence. For each category, two different algorithms have been developed; one utilizing the segment overlapping between transitions under test, and the other exploiting the multiplicity of UIO/BUIOs for each node. BUIO, in contrast to the UIO which is a distinguishing sequence following the node under investigation, identifies a node with a sequence that leads into it. Experiments show that significant gain in the test sequence length can be obtained with the proposed algorithms.