Verification of Modular Systems with Unknown Components Combining Testing and Inference

Roland Groz (1) , Keqin Li (2) , Alexandre Petrenko (3)

1 VASCO - Validation de Systèmes, Composants et Objets logiciels
2 SAP Research [Sophia Antipolis]
3 CRIM - Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montréal = Computer Research Institute of Montréal

Verification of a modular system composed of communicating components is a difficult problem, especially when the formal specifications, i.e., models of the components are not available. Conventional testing techniques are not efficient in detecting erroneous interactions of components because interleavings of internal events are difficult to reproduce in a modular system. The problem of detecting intermittent errors and other compositional problems in the absence of components' models is addressed in this paper. A method to infer a controllable approximation of communicating components through testing is elaborated. The inferred finite state models of components are used to detect compositional problems in the system through reachability analysis. To confirm a flaw in a particular component, a witness trace is used to construct a test applied to the component in isolation. The models are refined at each analysis step thus making the approach iterative.

Mots clés: Model Inference; Testing; Verification; Input/Output Transition Systems; Finite State Machines; Intermittent Errors

Domaines: Génie logiciel [cs.SE]

Roland Groz, Keqin Li, Alexandre Petrenko. Verification of Modular Systems with Unknown Components Combining Testing and Inference. 2013. ⟨hal-00857300⟩