Research On Component Integration Testing Techniques Based On Metadata

Because component-based software development technique make a lot of applications with similar architecture reuse, and shorten development cycle, decrease software development cost, thus it has become main development technique now. At the same time, relevant research of quality guarantee technique has yet become an important research aspect. In those, Component-based software testing, as one of the most directly and effectively quality quaranttee means, has become a research hot point in software engineering field. But it makes component-based software integration testing diffcult to implement fully and effectively when component is integrated into actual application environment, because of the heterogeneity of cpmponent and lack of information between component developers and component users. So the reliability and safety of component-based software system are not ensured.Addressed to above problems, relevant theory, model and application about component-based software testing based on metadata is developed, which aims to extend mutual information between component developers and component users, and increase component testability. The main way is that metadata describing static and dynamic information about component is provided by component developers to component users. This may make integration testing implemented by component users not a complete black-box testing, but a white-box testing to a certain extent.According to the features of component applied, the general functionalities and requirements of component metadata, grouped-metadata is introduced, which is divided into descriptive metadata and operational metadata. Descriptive metadata describes the static attributes of components, including five groups including identification, use, maturity, changes and quality assurance. Operational metadata is identified according to relevant operations and tasks accomplished. In general, it may be divided into three groups including input/output, run-time requirements, and remote operation. These two metadatum are encapsulated together to construct a metadata object. When it is implemented integration operation, it may be directly applied. According to above definitions, a reference model of grouped-metadata and its UML representation is constructed. And further construct an aritecture and a general framework of grouped-metadta system. Based on these, grouped-metadata reference model is applied to test cases generation. UML use cases and scenarios are applied to describe the functional requirements according to the detail of grouped-metadata. And relevant mapping method is used to map informal use cases to formal test cases meta-model. Then a test meta-model embedded in grouped-metadata to implement integration testing is constructed.Grouped-metadata may be applied to regression testing. A change model descring changes in grouped-metadata is constructed based on analyzing and classfing changes of component. Change-interface model, method dependency graph and interface model of grouped-metadata model and relevant algorithm is used to implement the mapping from method changes inside component to component interface changes. From the point views of component users, it may make them implement regression testing only on affected test ceses, and the numbers of regression test cases decrease to the least, regression test execution time obviously shorten.The analysis model of grouped-metadata may construct based on coupling information of variables and methods inside component. According to formal component couping testing criteria description, coupling relationship among methods inside component is decribed using component methods coupling graph. And DU table is further constructed, which includes definition and definition information of component method. Then observation mechanism based on observation–points is introduced in order to increase the observability of component. An implementation framework of testable component is constructed bansed on coupling information. It is better to find the abnormities of component when the framework is applied.Component dependency relationship matrix is used to represent the dependency relationships among components described in grouped-metadata system. The dependency relationships among components are analyzed, which includes eight types. Component dependency model can be constructed in the form of component depemdemcy graph. And dependency relationship matrix of component Cm (CmDM) and detailed dependency relationship matrix of component Cm (CmDDM) are used to describe the dependency relationships between component Cm and other components in the component-based system. Using component dependency relationships identification methods based on source code and specifications identify the dependency relationship between component and other components. The identification of dependency relationships may help component users implement integration testing more definitely. Moreover component dependency relationships matrix can be applied to determine regression test cases set. In addition, it can also be used to determine component set related to the component when it is reused. Thus, using component dependency relationship matrix may improve component integration testing effectively.