Design And Implementation For TCI-CH Of TTCN-3 Test System

TTCN-3 is a new kind of Test Specification Language (TSL). It makes it possible to use a standardized and abstract TSL in all fields of software developing. An abstract TSL also enables us to reuse test just as we do in software reusing. So better quality can be guaranteed in smaller time and with lower cost.TTCN-3 test system is different from those existing test systems that are devoted to conformance testing. TTCN-3 provides concepts for component-based distributed test system in dynamic test configuration, where test components may reside on various network nodes to be near the interfaces of the tested system. Hence the test system can use any number of test components to perform test procedure in parallel.The realization of executable TTCN-3 tests on concrete test platforms involves TTCN-3 compilation/interpretation and adaptations to the test platform. The TTCN-3 Control Interfaces (TCI) define entities, interfaces, types and operations needed to flexibly manage and distribute TTCN-3 based test system. It complements and completes the TTCN-3 Runtime Interface (TRI). The Component Handling Interfaces of TCI (TCI-CH) are responsible for distributing test components dynamically and managing communication among them. Thus TCI-CH is of great importance for realizing dynamic test configuration of test system.The functionalities and features of TCI-CH were well studied based on good understanding of TTCN-3. A design for supporting these functionalities and features was proposed. Its implementation was performed by using object-oriented programming methods and distributed-object technologies, CORBA. In this way, dynamic distribution and dynamic management of test configuration are achieved so that dynamic distribution and dynamic communication of test components are also completed. Because of the important position of TCI-CH in TTCN-3 test system, the contribution of this paper is of much value to deploying TTCN-3 in software testing.