Modeling Use-Case Sequential Dependencies Using ACL

UML’s support for modeling inter-use-case semantics is very limited. Briand and Labiche (2002) propose the TOTEM methodology to address the generation of tests for such dependencies. However, their generation algorithm, which heavily relies the notion of interleaving, presents one major problem: even for small examples, the number of sequences of use cases to test is unmanageable. The question we ask is: is it feasible to capture use cases and their sequential dependencies in a specification whose executability can allow system-level testing while avoiding the explosion of the number of use case sequences to generate? To answer positively this question we develop a specification for TOTEM’s library system in Arnold and Corriveau’s ACL specification language and explain how this specification can be used to generate a manageable number of tests. The key idea is that by modeling use case mutual independence we can considerably reduce the number of tests.