A testing-based approach to ensure the safety of shared resource concurrent systems

Abstract

The paper describes a framework for testing a class of safety-critical concurrent systems implemented using shared resource specifications. Shared resources contain declarative specifications of process interaction that can be used to derive, in a model-driven way, the most critical parts of a concurrent system. Here, we propose their use to build a state-based model that will help in testing a real implementation of the resource. The framework has been implemented using Erlang and QuickCheck and its source code is available. The paper also provides a novel parametric operational semantics for shared resources with scheduling policy annotations and a methodology to guide test-case generation from the shared resource specifications and a classification of common mistakes. We illustrate our framework by applying it to testing Java implementations of a prototypical automated shipping plant.