Authors:
Torsten Bandyszak
1
;
Mark Rzepka
2
;
Thorsten Weyer
1
and
Klaus Pohl
1
Affiliations:
1
University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
;
2
Protel Hotelsoftware GmbH, Germany
Keyword(s):
Requirements Validation, Reviews, Structured Analysis, Data Flow Diagrams, Test Paths, Test Cases.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Enterprise Information Systems
;
Information Systems Analysis and Specification
;
Requirements Analysis And Management
;
Software Engineering
Abstract:
Requirements validation should be carried out early in the development process to assure that the requirements
specification correctly reflects stakeholder’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.
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