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Using tabular notation to support model based testing: A practical experience using STTSpec and Spec Explorer

Finite state machines are a widely used concept for specifying the behavior of reactive systems for development as well as for testing purpose. Numerous graphical notations based on finite state machines have been developed and are commonly used today, such as state transition diagrams, state charts, and Unified Modeling Language (UML) state machine diagrams. While not as widely used, tabular notations for state machine-based specifications offer complementary advantages to diagrammatic notations. In this article, we describe an approach using tabular notations for state machine-based specifications in Model Based Testing and we evaluate these approaches using Spec Explorer from Microsoft. We developed a tool, called STTSpec, to convert tabular notation from an Excel sheet to the C# input models of Spec Explorer, allowing us to do functional testing with the benefit of simplicity of tabular notation. We demonstrate this by applying our approach to an industrial-size case study.