RE: [tag] some thoughts and comments from reading a month worth ofmessages

["Durand, Jacques R." <JDurand@us.fujitsu.com>]

Stephen:

My concern in reproducing RFC keywords when reusing the spec requirement
as is in the prose part of the TA, is the following:

Consider the specification requirement:

" When API function F(x) is called with argument value greater than MAX,
then the result SHOULD be same as F(MAX)".

Just using the above statement as "TA prose", will leave TA users
unclear as what are the pass and fail conditions for this TA: the use of
keyword "SHOULD" here might lead to conclude that  (x > MAX) AND (F(x)
!= F(MAX)) => pass, since this is authorized (though not recommended) by
the specification.

But the rationale behind writing a TA for this statement, is that it is
supposed to only verify if the recommended behavior/feature is supported
by the IUT or not. In such case, (x > MAX) AND (F(x) != F(MAX)) => fail,
while: (x > MAX) AND (F(x) = F(MAX)) => pass.

How to convey this test logic in a "prose" TA?
(a)- either force a rewriting of the prose without the keyword, e.g. "
When API function F(x) is called with argument value greater than MAX,
then the API implementation PASS this test if F(x) = F(MAX), and FAIL
otherwise."
(b)- or add a meta statement to the specification statement: "the test
outcome is PASS if the expected behavior is observed, FAIL otherwise."

In (b) the RFC keywords are still there, but the TA text is clear as
when pass/fail.

NOTE: when there are many spec requirements (either MUST or SHOULD) of
the same style for a large number of API functions, they could all share
the same additional meta statement (b), so as to avoid repetition.

Granted, we do not have this ambiguity in case we have MUST instead of
SHOULD, but I'd still prefer to handle these spec requirements in a
similar way: apply (a) or (b) above, regardless of the RFC keyword used.
Would that work for you?

Regards,
Jacques

-----Original Message-----
From: stephen.green@systml.co.uk [mailto:stephen.green@systml.co.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:42 PM
To: tag@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [tag] some thoughts and comments from reading a month worth
ofmessages

Hi Serm,

Quoting and itemizing your breakdown of three main parts of the TA

A, > - Prose - normative for human consumption B, > - Pointer to
specification - normative for human consumption and analysis C, > - TA
Model - detail break down of TA components

I understand that when speaking of the 'TA' you are really referring to
the flow part and calling that the TA Model, C. So I get the sense you
may mean that C (above) should not include the RFC keywords (MUST, etc).
I gather then that there might not be an objection to the likelihood
that the prose and pointer (A and B) would by almost necessity include
the RFC keywords. That I would agree with.

--
Stephen Green

Partner
SystML, http://www.systml.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 117 9541606

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+22:37 .. and voice



Quoting Serm Kulvatunyou <serm@nist.gov>:

> I would like the recall the discussion I had with JD when we sketching

> the TA model. We didn't like the pre-test and post-test conditions 
> because the antecedent and consequences encompasses more than just 
> conditions as it could also be event and/or action. So we tried to 
> make it general.  One of the reason we didn't want to go into the 
> specific of separating the pre-condition, action, and event because 
> one form could be written using another form and event and action may 
> contain conditions. For example, the condition "the light is on" could

> be written as an event "the system turns the light on", so is this 
> consequence a test affect or a post-condition or both. Given the 
> recent version of the TA model, maybe we can clearly distinguish the 
> test affect and post-condition in that 1) post-conditions indicate the

> state the IUT and/or environment need to be in in order to evaluate 
> the test affect which leading to the pass/fail outcome. The 
> post-condition may be empty, but if it is not it is a prerequisite the

> the test affect, i.e., if post-condition is not met the IUT cannot be 
> evaluated to fail hence the outcome is "cannot be determined" (or 
> "technical fail" may be is a common term used in IIC). 2) test affect
is everything else beyond the post-condition that is necessary &
sufficient for determining the "pass"
> or "fail" outcome. The point is we need more guideline.
>
> There were some discussions about TA testability. There is a proposed 
> TA defintion which implies that all TAs must be testable. It is common

> that some specification requirements are not testable or partially 
> testable, does it mean that we need no TA for them?
>
> I think we just use UML as non-normative for illustration and
explanation.
> We don't want to deal with the issue to map UML to XML/marks up.
>
> I think as far as spec dependency, it seems like if writing a TA for a

> specific specification, conformances to other dependent specs can be 
> easily stated. However, if writing TA for something like a SID 
> (standard integration deployment) profile, TA needs to be sort of 
> cross-spec. In that case, a TA for SID may need to ref individual TA
in each related spec.
>
> I generally lik the Rationale for Test Assertion is by Patrick Curran 
> but I think some workdings need to be revised. It can be used for 
> motivation/background section of the TAG doc.
>
> What is the definitive point of what is an implicit vs. explicit
reference?
>
> Concerning one of the Dave Pawson comments, I think the separation of 
> the TA from MUST, SHOULD, MAY in the specification is the right 
> statement. It is true that TA always indicate the MUST conditions, but

> I think we are making an argument that we want to separate TA from 
> determining the level of conformance. That is what JD is saying is 
> that regardless of MUST, SHOULD, MAY that is associated with the 
> requirements in the spec, TA only indicates condition to determine
whether the requirement is met.
>
> It seems like the current annatomy of TA includes (in order of 
> increasing formality/machine friendliness):
> - Prose - normative for human consumption
> - Pointer to specification - normative for human consumption and 
> analysis
> - TA Model - detail break down of TA components
>
> - Serm
>