The Commuting V-Diagram On the Relation of Refinement and Testing

摘要

This article discusses the relations between the step-wise development through refinement and the design of test-cases. It turns out that a commuting diagram inspired by the V-process model is able to clarify the issues involved. This V-diagram defines the dependencies of specifications, implementations and test-cases in the category of contracts. The objects in this category are contracts defined in the formalism of the refinement calculus. The maps are the refinement steps between these objects. Our framework is able to define the correctness notion of test-cases, testing strategies as refinement rules, and which test-cases should be added under refinement.