Decision tables as a system model

The trend towards an agile development of systems offers an opportunity for test departments to increase efficiency. An approach is model-based testing in which models should be used so that tests can be derived from them and e­xe­cu­ted as automatically as possible.

Decision tables are a model in which system behaviour is described. Test cases can be derived from the rules of a decision table. This task can be further automated with LF‑ET.

The values of a value table for a condition can be interpreted as equivalence classes from the point of view of test analysts. If an equivalence class corresponds to a numerical value range, boundary values can be developed for these equivalence classes. A test analyst thus creates more than one test case from a rule as they also take into consideration the boundary value in addition to an equivalence class.

Both test design processes: equivalence class analysis and boundary value analysis are contained in LF‑ET. The test analyst can designate values of a value table as valid or invalid equivalence classes and define value ranges that are used for boundary value analysis.

Once the required test information for a decision table is created, LF‑ET can generate test cases from the model automatically and export them in different formats. This export can then be used to:

The following metrics can be created for the test cases ge­ne­ra­ted from LF‑ET: