UML interaction model-driven runtime verification of Java programs

Abstract

The authors use unified modelling language (UML) 2.0 interaction overview diagrams (IODs) and sequence diagrams to construct simple and expressive scenario-based specifications, and present an approach to runtime verification of Java programs for exceptional consistency and mandatory consistency. The exceptional consistency requires that any forbidden scenario described by a given IOD never happens during the execution of a program, and the mandatory consistency requires that if a reference scenario described by a given sequence diagram occurs during the execution of a program, it must immediately adhere to a scenario described by a given IOD. In the approach, the authors first instrument a program under verification so as to gather the program execution traces related to a given scenario-based specification; then they drive the instrumented program to execute for generating the program execution traces; finally they check if the collected program execution traces satisfy the given specification. The approach leads to a supporting tool for testing in which UML interaction models are used as automatic test oracles to detect the wrong temporal ordering of message interaction in programs.