Testability of software components

Author

Freedman, Roy S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Polytech. Univ., Brooklyn, NY, USA

Volume

17

Issue

6

fYear

1991

fDate

6/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

553

Lastpage

564

Abstract

The concept of domain testability of software is defined by applying the concepts of observability and controllability to software. It is shown that a domain-testable program does not exhibit any input-output inconsistencies and supports small test sets in which test outputs are easily understood. Metrics that can be used to assess the level of effort required in order to modify a program so that it is domain-testable are discussed. Assessing testability from program specifications and an experiment which shows that it takes less time to build and test a program developed from a domain-testable specification than a similar program developed from a nondomain-testable specification are also discussed

Keywords

formal specification; program testing; controllability; domain testability; domain-testable program; domain-testable specification; input-output inconsistencies; nondomain-testable specification; observability; program specifications; small test sets; software components; test outputs; Computer displays; Computer science; Controllability; Explosives; Hardware; Observability; Programming; Software engineering; Software testing; Timing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0098-5589

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/32.87281

Filename

87281