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<Paper uid="P92-1042">
  <Title>DOCUMENTATION PARSER TO EXTRACT SOFTWARE TEST CONDITIONS</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="294" type="intro">
    <SectionTitle>
PARSING A DATABASE DICTIONARY
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The current focus of this project is on extracting database related testcases from the database dictionary of the XCON/XSEL configuration system (XCS) (Barker &amp; O'Connor,  1989). The CARPER project is aimed at building a self-maintaining database checker for the XCS database. As part of its processing, it extracts basic information contained in the fixed-format sections of the database dictionary. This project looks at what additional testing information can be retrieved from the database dictionary. In particular, each attribute description contains a &amp;quot;sanity checks&amp;quot; section which includes information relevant for testing the attribute, such as the format and allowable values of the attribute, or information about attributes which must or must not be used together. If this information is extracted using a text parser, either it will verify the accuracy of CARPER's checks, or it will augment them.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The database checks generated from a document parser will reflect changes made to the database dictionary automatically. This will be particularly useful when new attributes are added and when changes are made to attribute descriptions.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> (Lutsky, 1989) investigated the parsing of manuals for system routines to extract the maximum allowed length of the character string parameters. Database dictionary parsing represents a new software domain as well as a more complex type of testable information.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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