skip to main content
research-article

An empirical analysis of a testability model for object-oriented programs

Published: 04 August 2011 Publication History

Abstract

We present, in this paper, a metric based testability model for object-oriented programs. The model is, in fact, an adaptation of a model pro-posed in literature for assessing the testability of object-oriented design. The study presented in this paper aims at exploring empirically the capa-bility of the model to assess testability of classes at the code level. We investigate testability from the perspective of unit testing and required testing effort. We designed an empirical study using data collected from two Java software systems for which JUnit test cases exist. To capture testability of classes in terms of required testing effort, we used different metrics to quantify the corresponding JUnit test cases. In order to eva-luate the capability of the model to predict testability of classes (charac-teristics of corresponding test classes), we used statistical tests using correlation.

References

[1]
Baudry, B., Le Traon, B., Sunyé, G., Testability analysis of a UML class diagram, Proceeding of the 9th International Software Metrics Symposium (METRICS'03), IEEE Computer Society, 2003.
[2]
B. Baudry, B., Le Traon, Y., Sunyé, G., Jézéquel, J.M., Measuring and Improving Design Patterns Testability, Proceedings of the 9th International Software Metrics Symposium (METRICS), IEEE Computer Society, 2003.
[3]
Baudry, B., Le Traon, Y., Sunyé, G., Improving the Testability of UML Class Diagrams, Proceedings of IWoTA (International Workshop on Testability Analysis), Rennes, 2004.
[4]
Bertolino, A., Strigini, L., On the Use of Testability Measures for Dependability Assessment, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, VOL. 22, NO. 2, February 1996.
[5]
Binder, R.V., Design for Testability in Object-Oriented Systems, Communications of the ACM, Vol. 37, 1994.
[6]
Bruntink, M., Deursen, A.V., Predicting Class Testability using Object-Oriented Metrics, Fourth International Workshop on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM), IEEE Computer Society, 2004.
[7]
Bruntink, M., Deursen, A.V., An empirical study into class testability, Journal of Systems and Software, 2006.
[8]
Chidamber, S.R., Kemerer, C.F., 1994. A Metrics suite for object Oriented Design, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 20, No. 6, pp. 476--493, June 1994.
[9]
Chowdhary, V., Practicing Testability in the Real World, International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation, IEEE Computer Society Press, 2009.
[10]
Fenton, N., Pfleeger, S.L., Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach, PWS Pub. Company, 1997.
[11]
Freedman, R.S., Testability of Software Components, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Vol. 17(6), 1991.
[12]
Gao, J., Tsao, J., Wu, Y., Testing and Quality Assurance for Component-Based Software, Artech House Publishers, 2003.
[13]
Gao, J., Shih, M.C., A Component Testability Model for Verification and Measurement, Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC'05), IEEE CSP, 2005.
[14]
Gupta, V., Aggarwal, K.K., Singh, Y., A Fuzzy Approach for Integrated Measure of Object-Oriented Software Testability, Journal of Computer Science, Science Publications, 2005.
[15]
Henderson-Sellers, B., Object-Oriented Metrics Measures of Complexity, Prentice-Hall, 1996.
[16]
IEEE, 1990. IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology, IEEE CSP, NY, 1990.
[17]
ISO/IEC 9126: Software Engineering Product Quality, ISO Press, 1991.
[18]
Jungmayr, S., Testability Measurement and Software Dependencies, Proceedings of the 12th International. Workshop on Software Measurement, October 2002.
[19]
Karoui, K., Dssouli, R., Specification transformations and design for testability, Proceedings of the IEEE Global telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM'96), London, 1996.
[20]
Khan, R.A., Mustafa, K., Metric Based Testability Model for Object-Oriented Design (MTMOOD), ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, volume 34, number 2, March 2009.
[21]
Khoshgoftaar, T.M., Szabo, R.M., Detecting Program Modules with Low Testability, 11th ICSM, 1995.
[22]
Khoshgoftaar, T.M., Allen, E.B., Xu, Z., Predicting Testability of Program Modules Using a Neural Network, 3rd IEEE Symposium on Application-Specific Systems and Software Engineering Technology, 2000.
[23]
Le Traon, Y. and Robach, C., Testability analysis of co-designed systems, Proceedings of the 4th Asian Test Symposium, ATS. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, November 1995.
[24]
Le Traon, Y., Robach, C., Testability Measurements for Data Flow Design, Proceedings of the Fourth International Software Metrics Symposium, New Mexico, November 1997.
[25]
Le Traon, Y., Ouabdessalam, F., Robach, C., Analyzing testability on data flow designs, Proceedings of ISSRE'00, San Jose, CA, USA, October 2000.
[26]
McGregor, J., Srinivas, S., A measure of testing effort, Proceeding of the Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies, pages 129--142. USENIX Association, June 1996.
[27]
Nguyen, T.B., Delaunay, M., Robach, C., Testability Analysis Applied to Embedded Data-Flow Software, Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Quality Software (QSIC'03), 2003.
[28]
Petrenko, A., Dssouli, R., and Koenig, H., On Evaluation of Testability of Protocol Structures, In Proceedings of the Intenarional Workshop on Protocol Est Systems (IFIP), Pau, France, 1993.
[29]
Sheppard, J.W., Kaufman, M., Formal Specification of Testability Metrics in IEEE P1522, IEEE AUTOTESTCON, Pennsylvania, August 2001.
[30]
Voas, J.M., PIE: A dynamic failure-based technique, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 18(8), August 1992.
[31]
Voas, J., Miller, K.W., Semantic metrics for software testability, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 20, 1993.
[32]
Voas, J.M., Miller, K.W., Software Testability: The New Verification, IEEE Software, 12(3), 1995.
[33]
Yeh, P.L., Lin, J.C., Software Testability Measurement Derived From Data Flow Analysis, Proc. of the 2nd Euromicro Conference on Software Maintenance and Reengineering, Italy, March 1998.
[34]
Zhao, L., 2006. A New Approach for Software Testability Analysis, 28th ICSE, May 2006.

Cited By

View all

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes
ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes  Volume 36, Issue 4
July 2011
142 pages
ISSN:0163-5948
DOI:10.1145/1988997
Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 04 August 2011
Published in SIGSOFT Volume 36, Issue 4

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. metrics
  2. model
  3. relationship and empirical analysis
  4. software testability
  5. testing effort

Qualifiers

  • Research-article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)5
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 07 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Measuring Software Testability via Automatically Generated Test CasesIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.339662512(63904-63916)Online publication date: 2024
  • (2023)Software TestabilitySoftware Testing Automation10.1007/978-3-031-22057-9_1(3-43)Online publication date: 25-Mar-2023
  • (2020)Correlations among Software Testability MetricsProceedings of the XIX Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality10.1145/3439961.3439972(1-10)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
  • (2019)Branch coverage prediction in automated testingJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.215831:9Online publication date: 13-Oct-2019
  • (2018)A Systematic Review of Software Testability Measurement Techniques2018 International Conference on Computing, Power and Communication Technologies (GUCON)10.1109/GUCON.2018.8675006(299-303)Online publication date: Sep-2018
  • (2017)Deriving high-priority acceptance test cases using utility trees: A case study2017 36th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC)10.1109/SCCC.2017.8405142(1-8)Online publication date: Oct-2017
  • (2017)Using a cluster analysis method for grouping classes according to their inferred testability: An investigation of CK metrics, code coverage and mutation score2017 36th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC)10.1109/SCCC.2017.8405117(1-11)Online publication date: Oct-2017
  • (2016)Identifying characteristics of Java methods that may influence branch coverage: An exploratory study on open source projects2016 35th International Conference of the Chilean Computer Science Society (SCCC)10.1109/SCCC.2016.7835998(1-8)Online publication date: Oct-2016
  • (2015)An Empirical Validation of Coupling and Cohesion Metrics as Testability IndicatorsInformation Science and Applications10.1007/978-3-662-46578-3_109(915-922)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2015
  • (2013)An Empirical Study into Model TestabilityProceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Informatics and Creative Multimedia10.1109/ICICM.2013.22(85-92)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2013
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media