Testing object-oriented software systems

Abstract

A software system is a model of a problem domain in an attempt to solve the problem. Traditionally the system is constructed of units consisting of related functions--related by virtue of being constituents of a higher level function. Recently, a new approach to system decomposition has become popular. The new approach looks at the objects that make up the problem domain. Hence the name object-oriented. The data and it's operations are collected into a unit called a class. An object is an instance of a class with its own copy of the class' private data. In structured programming one thinks in terms of inputs, function, and outputs. In object-oriented programming (OOP) the approach is different-- a message is passed to an object requesting an operation on the object. A class can inherit data and/or operations from an existing parent (or base) class. In C + + the new class is called a derived class. The inheritance feature, more than any, makes OOP a viable approach.