Adequate Testing of Component-Based Software

People have long advocated a component-based approach to software construction as a way of simplifying the design and maintenance of large software systems, increasing the opportunities for reuse, and increasing software development productivity. Although the technology for constructing component-based software is relatively advanced, we lack a sufficient theoretical basis for testing component-based software. This paper initiates the development of such a theory. The main result is a formal definition of the concept C-adequate-forfor adequate unit testing of a component and the concept C-adequateon-M for adequate integration testing of a component-based system. The paper uses these concepts to discuss practical considerations in adequate testing of component-based software.