Mapping ACL to JavaMOP: A Feasibility Study

Abstract

Model-based testing (MBT) is a quality assurance technique where a test suite is generated from an abstract model. There are a number of different approaches to accomplish model-based testing. While state-based techniques dominate, they have a number of inherent issues. These issues have led to the pursuit of alternatives such as scenario-based approaches.ACL/VF is one such scenario-based approach. Developed by Dr. Corriveau and his students, the ACL/VF system provides both a language to specify an implementation-independent testable model of a specification and the tool to validate an implementation against this model. However, the current implementation of ACL/VF has a number of issues that prevent it from being a usable solution. In particular, the current version of ACL/VF is extremely .NET3.5 specific. Unfortunately, upgrading it to a more recent version of .NET essentially amounts to a complete rewrite. Given the widespread use of Java, a most immediate research question is to determine whether or not it is feasible to reimplement ACL/VF on that platform.Our claim is that this reimplementation can be accomplished through a mapping from ACL specifications to JavaMOP monitor specifications. The following thesis provides two case studies supporting this claim as well as an element-by-element proposed mapping.ii Acknowledgments I wish to thank my supervisor, Professor Jean-Pierre Corriveau, for his help in suggesting a topic, guiding me through it and editing this dissertation. I also want to thank my co-supervisor, Professor Wei Shi, for involving me in her Engage research project with Blueprint, as well as for her input and funding for this research.

Mapping ACL/VF to a Java Environment: A Feasibility Study

“…In software engineering (SE) MDD uses a variety of system independent graphics and textural languages to capture the software requirements. These models present a view of the system that is abstract and usually independent of the implementation details and as such may be more readily understood by the stakeholder's [11,24,25,26]. The models generated serve as input and output during all stages of the SDLC, including integration and acceptance testing.…”

“…MBT generates test suites from abstract models and captures a platform independent representation of the implementations behavior. The use of platform independent test suites provides two significant advantages, the first is it decouples requirements from the IUT, and the second is the reuse of test suites across multiple IUT's [24,29,30].…”

“…Each time an instance of a class is created a corresponding instance of the contract is created. In addition ACL incorporates pre and post condition checks, invariants and event driven monitoring to observe and monitor scenarios [11,24,40].…”

“…After extensive research two primary tools held significant promise, JUnit and the JavaMOP framework. From these findings a solution was proposed that utilized the JavaMOP framework to generate AspectJ monitors for the runtime monitoring of a Java IUT, with specific focus on scenario monitoring, and JUnit to test the pre and post-condition and invariants throughout the execution of the IUT [24]. The JavaMOP and JUnit framework will be discussed further in Chapter…”

“…In summary: scenarios define the temporal grammar, responsibilities define the behavior of the IUT during runtime, and events are the communication mechanism between instances of the contracts running concurrently. Essentially, scenarios are used to drive the runtime verification of the ACL/VF tool [24]. The input is an event that may be time dependent and the output is a set of reports that can reviewed to validate if the sequence of events defined by the scenarios temporal grammar has occurred in the correct sequence and the corresponding paths and events occurred between interdependent contracts in the defined order.…”