A software component verification tool

Abstract

Component based software engineering depends on reliable, robust components, since it may omit a unit test phase wholly or partially from the development cycle. The paper describes a tool that allows a component developer to design and run verification tests. In developing components for our library, we found it necessary to provide multiple mechanisms for identifying and capturing tests to overcome the limitations of any single mechanism. Once specified, test specifications and test results are stored in XML documents, providing a standard, portable form of storing, retrieving and updating test histories. One module of our component test bench, the test pattern verifier, has been designed to be general, lightweight and portable, so that it can be packaged with a component and its test specifications. This allows a component user to verify a component's compliance with specifications in a target environment.