UML behavioral model based test case generation

Abstract

In software engineering, system modeling is the process of formulating a representation of a real system in an abstract way to understand its behavior. Software testing encourages reusing these models for testing purpose. This expedites the process of test case generation. UML structural and behavioral specification diagrams have been used by testing researchers for generation of test scenarios and test data. The aim of this survey is to improve the understanding of UML based testing techniques. We have focused on test case generation from the behavioral specification diagrams, namely sequence, state chart and activity diagrams. We classify the various research approaches that are based on formal specifications, graph theoretic, heuristic testing, and direct UML specification processing. We discuss the issues of test coverage associated with these approaches.