A practical approach to UML-based derivation of integration tests

In this paper we address UML-based testing. Some authors have proposed methods to translate an UML description into another formal description, and then derive the tests from the latter (e.g. ,[l]). This is not our goal: we aim at a test method that is entirely based on UML, so that it can be easily adopted by industries already using UML. Some other recent studies propose methods to automatically derive test cases from UML statecharts (e.g., [2], [3]). These studies are interesting, and we see them as complementary to ours, as we do not use statechart diagrams, but higher level descriptions of the system. Indeed, we want to address test planning far the integration test phase starting from the very first stages of system design. We present an approach far UML-based test planning, that is called Use-Interaction testing, as it mainly uses the UML Use Case and Interaction diagrams (specifically, the Message Sequence diagram). Indeed, integration testing is aimed at verifying that the pre-tested system components interact correctly. UML Interaction diagrams can provide the information of how the system components should interact.