Component-based technology can increase reuse and productivity, but high-quality component-based systems are often difficult to implement. Component developers do not know the systems where the components will be used, while software engineers must develop new systems with limited knowledge on available components. We propose a new testing technique that generates, at the time of component development, integration test cases from the specification of the behavior expected from other components of the system. The technique presented in this paper supports both the component developer, who can early test the integration of the components with the system, and the software engineers, who can test concrete components at deployment time, simply re-using existing test cases.
The technique presented in this paper supports both the component developer, who can early test the integration of the components with the system, and the software engineers, who can test components at deployment time. We used questionnaires to validate the proposed solution.