A Metadata Model Based on Coupling Testing Information to Increase Testability of Component

A software component must be tested every time it is reused in order to assure quality of component itself and system in which it is to be integrated. So how to increase testability of component has become a key technology in the software engineering community. Here a method is introduced to increase component testability. And meanings of component testability and relative effective ways to increase testability are summarized. Then definitions of component coupling testing criterion, DU-I (Definition-Use Information) and OP-Vs (Observation-Point Values) are given. Base on these, a definition-use table is introduced, which includes DU-A and OP-Vs item, to help component testers to understand and observe interior details about component under test better. Then a framework of testable component based on above DU-table is given. These facilities provide ways to detect errors, observe state variables by observation-points based monitor mechanism. Moreover, above methods are applied to our application developed by ourselves before, and some test cases are generated. Then our method is compared with Orso method and Kan method using the same example, presenting the comparison results. The results illustrate the validity of our method, effectively generating test cases and killing more mutants.