Testing Component-Based Systems Using FSMs

Summary

No matter which tools, techniques, and methodologies are used for software development, it remains an error-prone process. Nevertheless, changing such important constituents of the software process surely has an effect on the types of faults inherent in the developed software. For instance, some types of faults are typical for structured development, whereas others are typical for object-oriented development.

This chapter explores the question of whether component-based software requires new testing techniques, and proposes an integrated testing technique. This technique integrates various tasks during testing component-based software: white-and black-box testing of the main component (i.e., the top level component controlling the other components), black-box testing of components, black-box testing of the middleware and integration testing of the main component with other components.

Benefits of this technique are shown using a real-world example: the technique is automatable and applicable to existing component-based software.