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

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 (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.