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A conformance test suite for TTCN-3 tools

Black-Box functional testing of TTCN-3 syntax and semantics

  • TTCN-3
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International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

With more than 10 years of maturing through industrial use and standardization, the Testing and Test Control Notation (TTCN-3) has become a widely used technology that many businesses depend upon for ensuring their product quality. With the rising number of supporters and tools, the demand for a means to assess the standards compliance of TTCN-3 tools has increased. In this article, we describe the motivation, approach, methodology, and results of the still ongoing project to develop a standardized conformance test suite for TTCN-3 tools. We discuss the challenges involved in creating such a test suite, the way to deal with imposed resource limitations of the project, and where we think the effort is heading.

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Abbreviations

ATS:

Abstract Test Suite

ETS:

Executable Test Suite

ETSI:

European Telecommunications Standards Institute

LTE:

Long-Term Evolution

TTCN-3:

Testing and Test Control Notation

IUT:

Implementation under Test

STF:

Specialist Task Force

IXIT:

Implementation eXtra Information for Testing

ICS:

Implementation Conformance Statement

TCK:

Technology Compatibility Kit

JCK:

Java Compatibility Kit

CTT:

Compatibility Test Tools

JCP:

Java Community Process

JSR:

Java Specification Request

RI:

Reference Implementation

ISO:

International Organization for Standardization

IMS:

IP Multimedia Subsystem

ITS:

Intelligent Transportation Systems

EBNF:

Extended Backus–Naur Form

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank a lot of people and persons from companies, institutes, and persons who supported this work and who provided valuable feedback (no specific order): ETSI, Conformiq, Jens Grabowski (University of Göttingen), Testing Technologies, Broadbit, Elvior, MTP, ISPRAS, Ericsson, Fraunhofer Fokus, Telecom Italia. We apologize for anyone we have missed to mention.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. T-Systems International GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany

    Benjamin Zeiss

  2. BroadBit, Komarno, Slovakia

    Andras Kovacs

  3. Institute for System Programming of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISPRAS), Moscow, Russia

    Nikolay Pakulin

  4. Testing Technologies IST GmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Bogdan Stanca-Kaposta

Authors
  1. Benjamin Zeiss
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  2. Andras Kovacs
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  3. Nikolay Pakulin
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  4. Bogdan Stanca-Kaposta
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Benjamin Zeiss.

Additional information

B. Zeiss was previously affiliated to the Software Engineering for Distributed Systems Group of the Georg-August University Göttingen.

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Zeiss, B., Kovacs, A., Pakulin, N. et al. A conformance test suite for TTCN-3 tools. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 16, 285–294 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-013-0285-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-013-0285-y

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