Supporting the Validation of Structured Analysis Specifications in the Engineering of Information Systems by Test Path Exploration
Torsten Bandyszak, Mark Rzepka, Thorsten Weyer, Klaus Pohl · 2015
Requirements validation should be carried out early in the development process to assure that the requirements specification correctly reflects stakeholderâ??s intentions, and to avoid the propagation of defects to subsequent phases. In addition to reviews, early test case creation is a commonly used requirements validation technique. However, manual test case derivation from specifications without formal semantics is costly, and requires experience in testing. This paper focuses on Structured Analysis as a semi-formal technique for specifying information systems requirements, which is part of latest requirements engineering curricula and widely accepted practices in business analysis. However, there is insufficient guidance and tool support for creating test cases without the need for using formal extensions in early development stages. Functional decomposition as a core concept of Structured Analysis, and the resulting distribution of control flow information complicates the identification of dependencies between system inputs and outputs. We propose a technique for automatically identifying test paths in Structured Analysis specifications. These test paths constitute the basis for defining test cases, and support requirements validation by guiding and structuring the review process.