Formal specifications and test: Correctness and oracle

Test Selection Criteria for Quantifier-Free First-Order Specifications

“…Testing from algebraic specifications has already been extensively studied [1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. Correctness issues have been investigated in presence of non-observable types whose equality can only be observed through observable contexts, i.e.…”

“…From the selection point of view, they do not propose any particular strategy, but only the substitution of axiom variables for some arbitrarily chosen data. On the contrary, following the specification-based testing framework proposed in [1], we characterize an exhaustive test set for such specifications. Moreover, by extending the unfolding-based selection criteria family defined for conditional positive equational specifications, we define a sound and complete unfolding procedure devoted to the coverage of quantifier-free first-order axioms.…”

“…In Section 1, we recall standard notations about quantifier-free first-order specifications. Section 2 gives relevant definitions of [1] concerning our framework of testing. In Section 3, an exhaustive test set for quantifier-free first-order specifications is characterized.…”

“…The work presented in Section 4 comes within the general framework of testing from formal specifications defined in [1]. Here, we succinctly introduce this framework, then we instantiate it to the formalism we have just defined in Section 1.…”

“…For instance, in the framework of testing from algebraic specifications, "observable" test cases are any ground equations provided with an equality predicate within the programming language used to implement the system under test. When such conditions (test hypotheses on systems and observability restrictions) are precisely stated, it becomes possible to formally define the testing activity [1,2]. In particular, correctness can be defined up to these conditions by characterizing an exhaustive test set, whose success is equivalent to system correctness.…”