An expert system for object-oriented program testing

Abstract

Data abstraction, information hiding, inheritance, and dynamic binding are four basic elements used in designing object-oriented (OO) programs. These four mechanisms enable programmer to write OO programs for easy to be extended, easy to be reused, and easy to be maintained. Software implemented by OO methodologies had been shown to be able to increase software quality and productivity [5]. However, the quality and reliability of the software cannot be guaranteed along without an appropriate software testing approach. Traditional testing approaches cannot be applied directly for the testing of OO programs due to the OO characteristics used in OO programs. In this paper we propose and implement an expert system for the testing of OO programs. The proposed testing framework contains a system model and OO testing strategies. Rules used to represent these proposed testing strategies are discussed and formulated. Exampling tested programs are provided to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.