Test-Driven Development of Model Transformations

Key concepts [1] Short development iterations (often only a few minutes) Pre-written test cases Each iteration produces code necessary to pass the test cases TDD requires little overhead for the specification of test data, implementing test stubs, test initiation, executing test cases, the interpretation of test results, etc. Well-established development technique in code-centric development Became popular with agile process models such as extreme programming [2] Typical subjects to unit testing are modules or classes Their behavior is tested by calling the declared functions or methods Test cases are typically target/actual-comparisons Functions or methods most often can be tested almost independently from each other with little effort ⇒ Feasibility of short iteration cycles and incremental development ⇒ TDD works! A model transformation takes input models conforming to the source meta model(s), produces output models conforming to the target meta model(s), is specified through a set of different transformation rules [3].