D-MBTDD: An Approach for Reusing Test Artefacts in Evolving Systems

Agile software development methodologies use an iterative and incremental development in order to handle evolving systems. Consolidated techniques in the field of testing have been applied to these techniques with the main purpose of aiding in the test creation stage. An example is Model-Based Test Driven Development (MBTDD) which joins the concepts of Model-Based Testing (MBT) and Test Driven Development (TDD). However, when iterative and incremental processes are used, problems appear as the consequence of the evolution of the system, such as: how to reuse the test artefacts, and how to select the relevant tests for implementing the new version of the system. In this context, this work proposes a process called D-MBTDD in which the agile development of a system is guided by model-based tests, focusing on helping with the reuse of test artefacts and on the process of identifying tests relevant to development. The information about the modifications between two versions of the test model are used in this approach, which was compared to the Regenerate-All approach, which regenerates test cases along the iterations and does not reuse any of them.