STATIONING SENTINELS IN SOFTWARE

Quality assurance of large commercial software is a crucial and time-consuming process. In the course of producing word-processing and finite element programs, the author discusses a post-development procedure for improving the reliability of computer programs. This tool, originally used to to test Fortran programs, is language-independent and is meant to accompany the more traditional methods. To test a program for minimal completeness, sentries are posted at strategic points in the code. They confirm whether or not the flow of execution has passed their stations.