Automated Statistical Testing Suite for Software Validation

Software validation is an important activity in order test whether the correct software has been developed. Several testing techniques have been developed, and one of these is statistical usage testing (SUT). The main purpose of SUT is to test a software product from a user's point of view. Hence, usage models are designed and then test cases are developed from the models. The development of test cases from the usage model can be made automatically by using a tool. In order to increase the efficiency of the test phase, software tools are important. This paper presents a new tool for statistical usage testing called MaTeLo. The tool is developed in a joint European project with six industrial partners and two university partners. The purpose of the tool is to automatically produce test cases based on usage models. The usage model can either be specified as message sequence charts, UML sequence diagrams or state charts. Furthermore, besides producing test cases, the tool calculates important metrics, for example, the reliability of the software and the coverage of the usage model.