duc@cos.UUCP.UUCP (04/07/87)
I think this is a very interesting topic for discussion. Typically a protocol specification contains some BNF notation for the syntactical definition (e.g., X.400, etc...) and the binding (or usage/meaning) of the components' values is burried in the 'english' text of the spec. The effect of this is the lack of a more 'complete' and/or formal notation to capture both the syntax and semantic in order for automating a testing system (to test the protocol) and/or determining a set of test cases to be 'partially' (or even wholly) complete to test a set of functionalities of the protocol (and therefore a result analysis system can be automated). Maybe, a knowledge-based system will solve this, but I prefer not to think about a database-driven approach until no can-do. Duc Kim Nguyen Corporation for Open Systems