Direct-dependency-based software compatibility testing

Software compatibility testing is an important quality assurance task aimed at ensuring that component-based software systems build and/or execute properly across a broad range of user system configurations. Because each configuration can involve multiple components with different versions, and because there are complex and changing interdependencies between components and their versions, it is generally infeasible to test all potential configurations. Therefore, compatibility testing usually means examining only a handful of default or popular configurations to detect problems, and as a result costly errors can and do escape to the field. This paper presents an improved approach to compatibility testing called RACHET. We formally model the configuration space for component-based systems and use the model to generate test plans covering user-specified portion of the space – the example in this paper is covering all direct dependencies between components. The test plan is exe...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: KBSE
• Authors: Il-Chul Yoon, Alan Sussman, Atif M. Memon, Adam A. Porter
• Keywords: Compatibility Testing, Component-based Software System, KBSE 2007, Software Compatibility Testing, Software Engineering