An execution-level component composition model based on component testing information

Abstract

Software components and software architectures have emerged as a promising paradigm to improve the construction of software systems. Some attributes, such as reliability, requires evidences about failures in the system. An approach addressing the software reliability estimation problem is based on considering all execution traces collected during the testing process. An execution trace is a sequence of blocks grouping source code statements. Following this approach, early reliability assessment of component assemblies requires addressing an important issue: a precise composition semantics representing the behavior of the assembled components. This paper describes a composition model for sequential component assemblies which uses as basic units of composition a set of empirical evidences generated during the component testing process. These units are named as Component Test Records. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.