THE FEASIBILITY OF AUTOMATICALLY TRANSLATING ADA CODE TO SOFTWARE TEST CASES

THE LACK OF TOOLS AND TRAINED PERSONNEL TO GENERATE SOFTWARE TEST CASES IS A MAJOR PROBLEM IN MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL COMMUNITIES TODAY. NOW BEING EXPANDED UNDER A PHASE II SBIR PROJECT IS A LANGUAGE INDEPENDENT TOOL CALLED "T" THAT AUTOMMATICALLY GENERATES SOFTWARE TEST CASES FROM REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATIONS. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN A "T" SOFTWARE DESCRIPTION IS VERY SIMILAR TO THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN AN ADA-VISIBLE SPECIFICATION PACKAGE. IT IS FEASIBLE TO BUILD A TRANSLATOR THAT WILL TAKE THE INFORMATION FROM AN ADA-VISIBLE SPECIFICATION AND PROCESS IT INTO "T" FOR AUTOMATIC TEST CASE GENERATION? BASED ON PEI'S PREVIOUS WORK ON "T" WITHIN THE SBIR PROGRAM, THE ANSWER IS MOST PROBABLY, "YES."