Patent Document ID: 5418793
Application ID: 08080881
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for developing test cases for evaluating an operation of a system, said system characterized by a plurality of objects and each object characterized by a finite state machine model, said method comprising the steps of: generating an object library from a list of object template notations corresponding to said plurality of objects in the system under test that are expressed in abstract syntax notation; storing said object library in a data base; generating an attribute library from a list of attribute template notations corresponding to each attribute of the system under test that are expressed in abstract syntax notation; storing said attribute library in the data base; generating a notification library from a list of notification template notations corresponding to each notation of the system under test that are expressed in abstract syntax notation; storing the notification library in the data base; representing each of said plurality of objects by a finite state machine model that is closest thereto from a plurality of generic behavior finite state machine models; for each of said plurality of objects, reading the respective data entries in the object library, the attribute library and the notification library therefor and inputting the respective data entries to the finite state machine model for that object; preparing a tour input for each of said plurality of objects from said data entries and said finite state machine model; processing each tour input using a postman process to generate the optimum cost test case tour for each finite state machine model of each object; and storing each optimum cost test case tour generated in the data base.