Validating a specification associated with a software application and/or a hardware

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9223685-B2
Application number	US-201414445610-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 29, 2014
Priority date	Jul 29, 2013
Publication date	Dec 29, 2015
Grant date	Dec 29, 2015

Abstract

System and method for validating a specification associated with a software application and/or a hardware is disclosed. The specification comprising expected behavior requirements specified in a specification language and the semantics in the tabular notation is received. In order to validate the specification, a string may be identified for the specification. The string may indicate characters conforming to the specification language. Upon identifying the string, a token may be generated using the string. The token may be a binary representation of the string. The token may be arranged into a data structure. The specification is checked to conform to the specification language. Two or more specifications specified in the specification language are merged. A test case is generated from the validated specification. The expected behavior with the actual behavior of the specification is validated.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for validating a specification associated with a software application and/or a hardware, the method comprising:
receiving, by a processor, the specification comprising expected behaviour requirements specified in a specification language and semantics in a tabular notation, wherein the expected behaviour requirements indicate a behaviour expected from the software application and/or the hardware;
identifying, by the processor, a string comprising one or more characters from the specification, wherein the string indicates the one or more characters conforming to the specification language;
generating, by the processor, a token using the string, wherein the token is a binary representation of the string;
arranging, by the processor, the token into a data structure, wherein the data structure is indicative of an actual behaviour of the software application and/or the hardware; and
checking, by the processor, the specification conforming to the specification language, wherein the specification is checked in order to generate a validated specification.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating an intermediate representation of the specification subsequent to generating the token.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the expected behavioural requirements comprises at least one of sequence of input and output events, conditions, and timing constraints.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising generating a test case from the validated specification.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the test case is generated for a row in the validated specification.

6. The method of claim 4 , further comprising validating the expected behaviour with the actual behaviour of the specification.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising merging two or more of the specifications specified in the specification language.

8. A system for validating and evaluating a specification associated with a software application and/or a hardware, the system comprising:
a processor;
a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the processor is capable of executing a plurality of modules stored in the memory, and wherein the plurality of modules comprising:
a reception module to receive the specification comprising expected behaviour requirements specified in a specification language and semantics in a tabular notation, wherein the expected behaviour requirements indicate a behaviour expected from the software application and/or the hardware;
a lexer to:
identify a string comprising one or more characters from the specification, wherein the string indicates the one or more characters conforming to the specification language;
generate a token using the string, wherein the token is a binary representation of the string;
a parser to:
create an intermediate representation of the specification language based on the token;
arrange the intermediate representation into a data structure, wherein the data structure is indicative of an actual behaviour of the software application and/or the hardware; and

a checking module to check the specification conforming to the specification language in order to generate a validated specification.

9. The system of claim 8 , further comprises an analyzing module to analyze the validated specification to perform one or more operations using the intermediate representation of the validated specification.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the analyzing module further generates a test case for a row in the tabular notation of the validated specification.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the analyzing module further merges two or more of the validated specifications specified in the specification language.

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the expected behavioural requirements comprises at least one of sequence of input and output events, conditions, timing constraints.

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device for validating a specification associated with a software application and/or a hardware, the program comprising:
a program code for receiving the specification comprising expected behaviour requirements specified in a specification language and semantics in a tabular notation, wherein the expected behaviour requirements indicate a behaviour expected from the software application and/or the hardware;
a program code for identifying a string comprising one or more characters from the specification, wherein the string indicates the one or more characters conforming to the specification language;
a program code for generating a token using the string, wherein the token is a binary representation of the string;
a program code for arranging the token into a data structure, wherein the data structure is indicative of an actual behaviour of the software application and/or the hardware; and
a program code for checking the specification conforming to the specification language, wherein the specification is checked in order to generate a validated specification.

Assignees

• Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

Inventors

• Krishna Goldsmith Murali
• Shrotri Ulka Aniruddha
• R venkatesh

Classifications

• G06F11/3684 Primary

  for test design, e.g. generating new test cases · CPC title

• G06F11/3668

  Testing of software · CPC title

• G06F11/3692 Primary

  for test results analysis · CPC title

• G06F11/3608

  using formal methods, e.g. model checking, abstract interpretation (theorem proving G06N5/013) · CPC title