Reusing class-based test cases for testing object-oriented framework interface classes

Abstract

An application framework provides a reusable design and implementation for a family of software systems. Frameworks are introduced to reduce the cost of a product line (i.e., family of products that share the common features) and to increase the maintainability of software products through the deployment of reliable large‐scale reusable components. A key challenge with frameworks is the development, evolution and maintenance of test cases to ensure the framework operates appropriately in a given application or product. Reusable test cases increase the maintainability of the software products because an entirely new set of test cases does not have to be generated each time the framework is deployed. At the framework deployment stage, the application developers (i.e., framework users) may need the flexibility to ignore or modify part of the specification used to generate the reusable class‐based test cases. This paper addresses how to deal effectively with the different modification forms such that the use of the test cases becomes easy and straightforward in testing the framework interface classes (FICs) developed at the application development stage. Finally, the paper discusses the fault coverage and experimentally examines the specification coverage of the reusable test cases. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Estimating the coverage of the framework application reusable cluster-based test cases

“…Wang et al [16], propose providing the framework with reusable class-based test cases that can be applied during the application engineering stage. Al Dallal [17] and Al Dallal and Sorenson [18,19] propose a technique to test the FICs at class-level using reusable test cases built during the framework domain engineering stage.…”

“…When the framework is used during the application engineering stage, developers build two types of classes: (1) classes that use the framework classes and (2) classes that do not. Classes that use the framework classes are called Framework Interface Classes (FICs) [17] because they act as interfaces between the framework classes and the second type of the classes created by application developers. Fig.…”

“…Some of these testing techniques are proposed specifically to test object-oriented frameworks, including [1,12,[24][25][26]. Others are proposed specifically to test object-oriented framework instantiations, including [16][17][18]24,27].…”

“…The coverage of the reusable test cases is measured in terms of the covered Framework Interface Class (FIC) code statements that cause class collaborations and interactions. FICs are application-specific classes that extend or use the framework classes directly [17]. The results of the case study show that, on average, more than one-third of the FIC class interactions are covered using the possible reusable cluster-based test cases.…”

“…[11]), testing the use of class libraries (e.g. [12]), testing software product-lines [13][14][15], and testing object-oriented framework applications [16][17][18][19]. Building reusable test cases for the framework applications at the framework development stage increases the framework development time and cost.…”