Requirement-based test case generation and prioritization

Software release testing is a critical phase in the software development life cycle, as it validates the software against its requirements. Designing comprehensive release test cases that are driven by the software requirements remain the major success factor of the testing phase as far as the software customers are concerned. Further, availing sufficient traceability information to ensure complete coverage of requirements validation in the designed test case suite is significant to software quality assurance. In this paper, we propose a systematic mechanism to derive a set of release test cases from a set of requirements modeled with the Genetic Software Engineering (GSE) method. GSE models functional requirements with a semi-formal visual notation called Behavior Trees (BT). Our algorithm prioritizes the requirements modeled with BTs and derives a set of prioritized release test cases systematically. Additionally, our algorithm provides sufficient traceability information relating test cases to the requirements being tested. This allows for ensuring completeness of test case coverage. We also demonstrate our test case derivation mechanism through a case study.

I. Introduction

In a software project to be most successful, quality must be maximized, while minimizing cost and keeping delivery time short [1]. Quality can be measured by customer satisfaction with the resulting system based on the requirements that are incorporated successfully in the system [1]. Test cases validate the software against its requirements, which assures the customer that requirements are incorporated successfully in the software.