Patent ID: 7644334

Claim:
A method for creating test cases, comprising: conducting a static analysis of a data flow diagram, wherein the data flow diagram embodies requirements and has at least one input and at least one output, wherein the data flow diagram is comprised of blocks, and wherein each block has at least one port describing either an input to or an output from the block; conducting a dynamic analysis of the data flow diagram by (a) designating a block as a block under test, (b) using a template to create at least one set of block input values to the block under test and at least one set of expected block output values from the block under test such that if the block input values are applied to the block under test and the expected block output values result, at least one requirement is verified, (c) propagating the block input values along input paths to determine corresponding data flow diagram input values, wherein an input path comprises a series of blocks and arcs that describe a data path from one or more inputs of the data flow diagram to the inputs of the block under test, (d) propagating the expected block output values along the output paths to determine corresponding data flow diagram expected output values, wherein an output path comprises a series of blocks and arcs describing a data path from the outputs of the block under test to one or more outputs of the data flow diagram, (e) combining the data flow diagram input values and the data flow diagram expected output values to create test vectors, and (f) repeating dynamic analysis with a different block under test as needed until all blocks in the data flow diagram have been designated as the block under test; and combining the test vectors into test cases.