UML-based test specification for communication systems: a methodology for the use of MSC and IDL in testing

Nowadays, the complexity of modern telecommunication systems has increased significantly and the requirement for thorough and systematic testing is undisputed. The Testing and Test Control Notation (version 3) (TTCN-3) is an universal and standardised language for the specification and implementation of tests for communication systems. Many systems and in particular object-oriented systems are described using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). Therefore, UML models are an important source for test development and in particular for manual test purpose specification and automatic test generation. Thus, usage of UML from a test perspective is considered. UML models provide interface information by class diagramms and description of scenarios by sequence diagrams respectively Message Sequence Charts (MSCs). Most UML tools permit conversion of class diagrams into Interface Definition Language (IDL) which widens applicability. The combination of TTCN-3 and UML by MSC and IDL is a new approach. Thus, new mappings for MSC and IDL to TTCN-3 have been worked out. Additionally, to widen usability and applicability, the deficiency of objectorientation in TTCN-3 is inspected and a proposal for an object-oriented revision is given.