TAXI Testing by Automatically generated XML Instances

Transcription

1 TAXI Testing by Automatically generated XML Instances August 5, 2010

2 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Installing and Running Taxi 4 3 TAXI Interface Insert Values Assign the Weight Values Save the Configured XSD File Start the Instance Generation Test Strategy Selection View the Instances Transform XML instances

3 List of Figures 3.1 Main interface of Taxi tool Insert Values Weight assignment Set maxoccur value Instance generation Test Strategy Selection & Finish generation Show instances Transform XML instances

4 Chapter 1 Introduction TAXI (Testing by Automatically generated XML Instances) is a tool used to generate XML instances from a XML Schema automatically. This tutorial gives a short overview of TAXI and takes you through several tasks which provide a guide of how to use TAXI. TAXI (Testing by Automatically generated XML Instances) implements the XML-based Partition Testing approach for the automated generation of XML Instances conforming to a given XML Schema. In addition, it provides a set of weighted test strategies to guide the systematic derivation of instances. TAXI can be used for black-box testing of applications accepting in input XML instances and for benchmark of database management systems. The TAXI methodology is largely inspired to the well-known Category Partition, which provides a stepwise intuitive approach to functional testing, as follows: identify the relevant input parameters; define the environment conditions; combine their significant values into an effective test suite. In order to reduce the number of combinations generated by Category Partition, TAXI also integrates a set of weighted test strategies. 3

5 Chapter 2 Installing and Running Taxi Download Taxi at Install Taxi in the selected destination folder, and run it. The main Taxi interface will appear. The Taxi tool can be used by its graphic interface. 4

6 Chapter 3 TAXI Interface The TAXI interface as in Figure 3.1 is structured into four areas. The central area provides you with the tree structure of your XML Schema document. The other areas contain buttons that provide information, editing help, file management features and tool facilities execution. The tool bar consists of the buttons that enable to open, view and set the XML schema. The central area is the Main window, where you can edit and view the XML schema. The XML Schema file is shown as a tree structure. In this area you can see the nodes of the XSD file, the weight values of the choice elements, and the minoccurs and maxoccurs attributes of the elements. The buttons in the tool bar are: Open To open a new XML schema file. Save To save the opened XSD file with another name, so that all assigned information will be stored. Expand all To expand the tree of the XSD file. Collapse all To draw back the tree of the XSD file, and show only the root element. Start modifying To start the modification of the weights of the choice elements. Stop modifying To finish the modification of the element weights. Reset To reset the weights of the elements with the initial values. On the right side of the interface, there are three buttons, which are: Automatic generation This button is used for starting the instance generation. This button is not enabled until the configuration of the generation process is finished. 5

7 Figure 3.1: Main interface of Taxi tool Database population Now this button is not enabled. Show instances This is used to show the generated instances. Transform instances It is used to start the transformation of a set of XML instances by using a XSL file, and the validation of the obtained documents against an output XML schema. At the bottom of the TAXI interface, there are three buttons, which are: Info To show the information of the opened XSD file. Refresh To refresh the values of the elements weights. Quit To quit the TAXI tool. 3.1 Insert Values By the main taxi interface, the user can insert the values of attributes and elements that are used for filling the generated XML instances. 6

8 Figure 3.2: Insert Values In particular, by double clicking on the element or attribute name, it will appear a window (see Figure 3.2) where the user can see the existing values for that element or attribute, delete some existing values and add new ones one by one. Please check off values before delete them. If the user does not specify any value for elements and attributes random values are generated and used for filling the generated instances. 3.2 Assign the Weight Values When there is a choice element in the XML Schema file, TAXI will show also the weights of the choice children. Like shown in the Figure 3.3, there is a list of initial weights of the children of a choice element. Initially, these default weight values for the elements are given by TAXI automatically. The modification is locked at the beginning. The user must click on Start modifying button to unlock the modification function. Then the user can double click the weight value of the element. When the weight value is highlighted (with blue), it means that this value can be edited. The amount of the weights cannot be greater than 1 or smaller than 0, otherwise TAXI sends an alert, and the modification will be rejected. 7

9 Figure 3.3: Weight assignment By clicking the Refresh button, TAXI will distribute the rest of the weights into the other elements of the same choice automatically. If the user is not satisfied with the modified weights, he can click on the Reset button, then the weights will be reset to their initial values. After modifying the weights, the user must click on Stop modifying button to lock the weight assignment. Schema content is changed by adding the weight information. 3.3 Save the Configured XSD File Before starting the automatic generation, the user must save the XSD file by click Save. Then, the user can save the XSD file as a xml file with the same name, or with another name. When the value of maxoccurs is unbounded, TAXI gives its default value as 3. This default value can be changed (see Figure 3.4) when Save the XSD file. 8

10 Figure 3.4: Set maxoccur value 3.4 Start the Instance Generation When the configured XSD is saved, the button Automatic Generation is enabled. Click it to start the process of instance generation. Then, a window will appear as in Figure 3.5, showing the maximum number of xml instances that can be derived by the selected xsd schema, according to the xml instance 9

11 Figure 3.5: Instance generation generation methodology implemented in the Taxi tool. 3.5 Test Strategy Selection There are four test strategies provided by TAXI, as shown in the Figure 3.6. These strategies are: Coverage Set the test coverage. Then TAXI will select the sub-schemas starting from the heaviest one, and adding the weights of the other subschemas until the total weight reaches the coverage amount. Number of Instances Set the total number of instances that the user wants. TAXI then distributes the amount of instances into each subschema according to its weight. Heavier sub-schemas can derive more instances than lighter ones. Mixed mode Mixes the first two strategies together so that the fixed number of instances can be generated from the specific sub-schemas. Get all combinations Get all the possible instances from the XML schema file. 10

12 Figure 3.6: Test Strategy Selection & Finish generation When all instances are generated, the user should click Finish the generation (see Figure 3.6) to finish the process of generation. The user can also break off the generation by clicking Finish the generation. 11

13 3.6 View the Instances Figure 3.7: Show instances The instances are saved in the folder TAXI temp that is under the TAXI install path. In order to distinguish instances from different XML schemas, the default instance name is composed like: name of the input XML schema + instance + the serial number of the instance (see Figure 3.7). By clicking Show Instances the user can go to the path of the instances directly. TAXI provides a browser to view the instances. 3.7 Transform XML instances By clicking the Transform instances button, Taxi can be also used to transform a set of xml instances according to a xsl file. A window will appear (see Figure 3.8) allowing the user to select a xsl file, a set of xml instances, and a xml schema. The xml instances are transformed according to the xsl file and the transformed instances are validated against the selected xml schema, then the validation result is stored in a log file. 12

14 Figure 3.8: Transform XML instances 13