Verifying Test-Hypotheses: An Experiment in Test and Proof

by Achim D. Brucker, Lukas Brügger, and Burkhart Wolff

Cover for brucker.ea:verifying:2008.HOL-TestGen is a specification and test case generation environment extending the interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. The HOL-TestGen method is two-staged: first, the original formula, called test specification, is partitioned into test cases by transformation into a normal form called test theorem. Second, the test cases are analyzed for ground instances (the test data) satisfying the constraints of the test cases. Particular emphasis is put on the control of explicit test hypotheses which can be proven over concrete programs.

As such, explicit test hypotheses establish a logical link between validation by test and by proof. Since HOL-TestGen generates explicit test hypotheses and makes them amenable to formal proof, the system is in a unique position to explore the relations between them at an example.

Keywords: symbolic test case generations, black box testing, theorem proving, formal verification, Isabelle/HOL
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QR Code for brucker.ea:verifying:2008.Please cite this article as follows:
Achim D. Brucker, Lukas Brügger, and Burkhart Wolff. Verifying Test-Hypotheses: An Experiment in Test and Proof. In Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 220 (1), pages 15-27, 2008. Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Model Based Testing (MBT 2008)
Keywords: symbolic test case generations, black box testing, theorem proving, formal verification, Isabelle/HOL
(full text as PDF file) (BibTeX) (Endnote) (RIS) (Word) (doi:10.1016/j.entcs.2008.11.003) (Share article on LinkedIn. Share article on CiteULike. )

BibTeX
@Article{ brucker.ea:verifying:2008,
abstract = {HOL-TestGen is a specification and test case generation environment extending the interactive theorem prover Isabelle/HOL. The HOL-TestGen method is two-staged: first, the original formula, called \emph{test specification}, is partitioned into \emph{test cases} by transformation into a normal form called \emph{test theorem}. Second, the test cases are analyzed for ground instances (the \emph{test data}) satisfying the constraints of the test cases. Particular emphasis is put on the control of explicit test hypotheses which can be proven over concrete programs.\\\\As such, explicit test hypotheses establish a logical link between validation by test and by proof. Since HOL-TestGen generates explicit test hypotheses and makes them amenable to formal proof, the system is in a unique position to explore the relations between them at an example.},
address = {Amsterdam},
author = {Achim D. Brucker and Lukas Br{\"u}gger and Burkhart Wolff},
doi = {10.1016/j.entcs.2008.11.003},
editor = {Bernd Finkbeiner and Yuri Gurevich and Alexander K. Petrenko},
issn = {1571-0661},
journal = {Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science},
keywords = {symbolic test case generations, black box testing, theorem proving, formal verification, Isabelle/HOL},
language = {USenglish},
location = {Budapest, Hungary},
note = {Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Model Based Testing (MBT 2008)},
number = {1},
pages = {15--27},
pdf = {https://www.brucker.ch/bibliography/download/2008/brucker.ea-verifying-2008.pdf},
publisher = {Elsevier Science Publishers},
title = {Verifying Test-Hypotheses: An Experiment in Test and Proof},
url = {https://www.brucker.ch/bibliography/abstract/brucker.ea-verifying-2008},
volume = {220},
year = {2008},
}