Highlighting the essentials of the behaviour of reactive systems in test descriptions using the behavioural atomic element

Abstract

The work described in this paper depicts an approach how to close the lack of structure for test specifications, test descriptions and test data representations. On the example of a test data representation with the eXtensible Markup Languange (XML), it will be shown how to form the structure using the behavioural atomic element and two testing patterns, i.e. for test stimuli and test reactions. The patterns are described using Petri net semantics. The scalability and flexibility of the approach, i.e. enabling the consideration of domain specific information, will also be shown on the example of the testing format. The pros and cons for using non-black box information in test descriptions and reference black box behaviour specification for reactive systems, like actions, tasks and processes as well as system states in addition to the interface events, will also be discussed in this paper.