UIO_E: A protocol test sequence generation method using the transition executability analysis (TEA)

This paper presents a new test sequence generation method for protocols that are specified in the Extended Finite State Machine (EFSM) model. The new method is called UIO_E, which represents executable Unique Input/Output (UIO) sequences for EFSMs. Since EFSM-specified transitions may contain predicates in the condition parts, and may contain conditional statements, e.g., if-then-else statements, in the action parts, the executabilities of input events and output events become complex. Additionally, shorter UIOs, which are generated without considering the predicate issue, may not be the shorter executable UIOs. In EFSM-specified protocols, the switching sequence and the transition under testing can decide the executability of a state's UIO. Thus, we propose a Transition Executability Analysis (TEA) to analyze executable transition sequences based on the initial state's context variables configuration. Consequently, each state's UIO_E can be selected depending on the tail state's context variables configuration of the transition under testing.