Inter-class testing of O-O software in the presence of polymorphism

  • Authors:

  • Amit Paradkar

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

  • Venue:
  • CASCON '96 Proceedings of the 1996 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research
  • Year:
  • 1996

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Abstract

This paper describes an algorithm for testing polymorphic interactions between classes in object-oriented (O-O) software. We propose an Augmented Object Relationship Diagram (AORD), which is an extension of a previously reported ORD representation, to facilitate the algorithm. AORD is a graph representation of the class structure augmented with additional information about the methods defined in each class. This additional information consists of call-graph of all the methods in that class. Information on redefined or new attributes in derived classes is also retained. AORD also contains a dynamic model of class behavior in the form of a state diagram. AORD representation is used to derive an order of integration for the classes involved. This integration order is an improvement over the ordering algorithm reported previously. We also use this information to test polymorphic interaction between classes. We propose heuristics to further refine and prune the list of state-message combinations that need to be tested. Our approach provides significant improvement over exhaustive testing of all subclass interactions.