Component-aware Input-Output Conformance

Part 1: Full PapersInternational audienceBlack-box conformance testing based on a compositional model of the intended behaviour is a very attractive approach to validate the correctness of an implementation. In this context, input-output conformance is a scientifically well-established formalisation of the testing process. This paper discusses peculiar problems arising in situations where the implementation is a monolithic black box, for instance for reasons of intellectual property restrictions, while the specification is compositional. In essence, tests need to be enabled to observe progress in individual specification-level components. For that, we will reconsider input-output conformance so that it can faithfully deal with such situations. Refined notions of quiescence play a central role in a proper treatment of the problem. We focus on the scenario of parallel components with fully asynchronous communication covering very many notorious practical examples. We finally illustrate the practical implications of component-aware conformance testing in the context of a prominent example, namely networked embedded software