FTEXT: Functional testing of e-commerce systems with extreme programming and TTCN-3

Today's e-commerce systems have evolved from traditional middleware technologies such as CORBA and DCOM to a multi-tiered infrastructure. Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and Microsoft .NET are two main competitors building on such architecture. Usually a multi-tiered architecture involves distinct architecture layers, components, distributed applications and enterprise resources. This complexity poses considerable risks to e-commerce systems building on such infrastructure.; To address the current problems of high testing cost and non-formal test specification, we propose a new process called FTEXT (Functional Testing of E-commerce systems with eXtreme programming and TTCN-3). FTEXT combines an agile software development process, cost-effective test tools and a formal test specification language that serve a common purpose and work together to support a cost-effective approach to test J2EE based e-commerce systems. To facilitate TTCN-3 test execution, we have designed and implemented a parser that translates TTCN-3 test script to Java source code that conforms to the selected open source test tool. The source code is then compiled into executable test code.; In the context of J2EE based system development and testing, this thesis offers the following contributions: (1) Methodology: Proposed a new cost-effective model (FTEXT) for testing J2EE based e-commerce systems. (2) Parser: Designed and implemented a parser to translate TTCN-3 test script and generate Java test code that conforms to the selected open source test tool for functional testing of Web-based applications. (3) Case Study: Implemented our approach in a case study that tests a typical J2EE ecommerce application. The case study demonstrates the working mechanism of the FTEXT method, relevant open source tools (e.g. HttpUnit and Apache Ant) and the capability of our TTCN-3 to Java parser.