Improving Software Tests Using Z Specifications

Formal Speciications become more and more important in the development of software, especially, but not only in the area of high integrity systems. Testing as a method to validate the functionality of a system against the speciication will keep its justiication also in a development process using formal speciications. We demonstrate, where the problems lie when carrying out software integration tests using traditional testing techniques. It will then be demonstrated , how formal speciications can be used to achieve greater reliability and productivity during the software testing process by using extensive automatic tool support. This applies for the selection of test cases as well as the evaluation of test results, leading to a highly automated test process. First experiences from a case study will be given, in which we repeat the software integration test process for an application that has been developed by DST as part of the Cabin Intercommunication Data System (CIDS) for the new Airbus A330/340 family.