TML: an XML-based test modeling language

ABSTRACT

Quality is a key property of modern software systems. In addition, to quality improvement strategies such as CMM or CMMI and manual checking approaches such as reviews or inspections, software testing is the major quality assurance activity in most projects. Literally speaking, software testing is nearly as essential as writing code itself. Due to its prominent role there are quite a number of commercial and open-source test tools available. However, the question remains if an organisation should rely on a single tool or if it should follow a more general strategy using several tools? Practical experience has shown that the latter strategy is more promising by covering multiple quality aspects that cannot be covered by a single tool, although it requires a means of communication between tools (i.e., a tool independent test language). This paper introduces a XML-based and test tool independent test modeling language that support creating general test cases. The language separates test logic from test tool specific code. Thus, a test case only has to be specified once and can then be executed by several test tools.

REFERENCES

• 1: {BPSM+06} Tim Bray, Jean Paoli, C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Eve Maler, and François Yergeau, editors. Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 --- W3C Recommendation. W3C, 4th edition, September 2006. http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/REC-xml-20060816.
• 2: {Cla99} James Clark, editor. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0 --- W3C Recommendation . W3C, 1st edition, November 1999. http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xslt-19991116.
• 3: {FW04} David C. Fallside and Priscilla Walmsley, editors. XML Schema Part 0: Primer --- W3C Recommendation. W3C, 2nd edition, October 2004. http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-0-20041028/.
• 4: {KAB+04} Martin Keen, Amit Acharya, Susan Bishop, Alan Hopkins, SvenMilinski, Chris Nott, Rick Robinson, Jonathan Adams, and Paul Verschueren. Patterns: Implementing an SOA Using an Enterprise Service Bus. IBM, July 2004. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246346.pdf.
• 5: {MBE+07} Thomas Müller, Rex Black, Sigrid Eldh, Dorothy Graham, Klaus Olsen, Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Geoff Thompson, Erik van Veendendal, and Debra Friedenberg. Certified Tester --- Foundation Level Syllabus. Online-Article, April 2007. http://www.istqb.org/downloads/syllabi/SyllabusFoundation.pdf.
• 6: {PKS02} Martin Pol, Tim Koomen, and Andreas Spillner. Management und Optimierung des Testprozesses. dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, March 2002. in German.
• 7: {Rob01} Ray Robinson. Automation test tools. Online-Article, September 2001. http://www.vcaa.com/tools/Ray\%20Robinson.pdf.
• 8: {SL05} Andreas Spillner and Tilo Linz. Basiswissen Softwaretest. dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, 3rd edition, August 2005. in German.
• 9: {SRWL06} Andreas Spillner, Thomas Roßner, Mario Winter, and Tilo Linz. Praxiswissen Softwaretest --- Testmanagement. dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, August 2006. in German.
• 10: {Zim07} Torsten Zimmermann. The T2 effect. In Ina Schieferdecker and Stephan Goericke, editors, Business Process Engineering --- Proceedings of the CONQUEST 2007, pages 289--308, Heidelberg, Germany, September 2007. dpunkt.verlag.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Languages

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
      D.2.5 Testing and Debugging

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.7 DOCUMENT AND TEXT PROCESSING
      I.7.2 Document Preparation

          Nouns: XML

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Languages, Measurement, Performance