Paper Info
Title
NAT2TESTSCR: Test case generation from natural language requirements based on SCR specifications.
Abstract
Formal models are increasingly being used as input for automated test generation strategies. Software Cost Reduction (SCR), for example, was designed to detect and correct errors during the requirements phase, also allowing test generation. However, the syntax of SCR and other formalisms are not trivial for non-experts. In this work, we present a strategy for test case generation from natural language requirements that uses SCR as an intermediate and hidden formalism. To minimize textual ambiguity, requirements are written according to a controlled natural language. Syntactically valid requirements are mapped into their semantic representation using case frames, from which SCR specifications are derived. These specifications are then used by the T-VEC tool to generate tests cases. Our strategy was evaluated in four different domains: (i) a vending machine (toy example); (ii) a control system for safety injection in a nuclear power plant (publicly available), (iii) one example provided by our industrial partner Embraer; and (iv) the turn indicator system of Mercedes vehicles (publicly available). As a baseline we considered random testing, and, in general, our strategy outperformed it in terms of performance and mutant-based strength analysis.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1016/j.scico.2014.06.007
Science of Computer Programming
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Requirements,Test generation,Natural language processing,Software cost reduction,SCR
Journal
95
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
0167-6423
10
0.59
References 
Authors
22
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Gustavo Carvalho1486.13
Diogo Falcão2201.50
Flávia De Almeida Barros3373.82
Augusto Sampaio450143.38
Alexandre Cabral Mota519918.27
Leonardo Motta6201.16
Mark Blackburn7456.57