Structural Source Code Coverage: Are you working in software projects where functional safety is becoming more and more important? The use of IEC 61508, ISO 26262 or a comparable standard is around the corner or you are already in the middle of such a project? In these cases you have probably already encountered the term Structural Source Code Coverage. Many people often consider the achievement of structural coverage to be equivalent to a very high testing effort and they doubt whether the costs and benefits of this topic are in a reasonable ratio.
Tag Archive for: Software Testing
The measurement of structural source code coverage is nowadays defined as an important procedure in many functional safety standards. The non-intrusive measurement of structural coverage offers completely new possibilities in the future. For a long time, it was industry-wide consensus that structural coverage should and could only be determined in so-called white-box tests. In many textbooks, the measurement of structural source code coverage is even promoted as an independent test method. The following blog post shows why things are likely to change in the future. Read more
In the first part of the blog I defined the term Implicit Testing and discussed root causes for the need of implicit tests. Now, in the second part I will focus on the disadvantages of such tests and on possible solution approaches with the goal to avoid these disadvantages. Read more
In larger safety-critical projects, quite often I hear the following statement: “Well, the Requirement A is indirectly or implicitly proven with the test XY!” Do you know this sentence as well? Have you ever experienced what can happen in late project phases when you have tested many requirements indirectly?
The blog defines the term in part 1 and it discusses the causes of implicit testing. Read more
EN 50128 configurable Systems: Chapter 8 of EN 50128 specifies the requirements for systems that are configured by application data or application algorithms (EN 50128 configurable Systems). This blog summarizes the essential requirements of the standard and the practice-oriented challenges of software-configurable embedded systems.
At the first glance the configurability offers only advantages. The functional behavior of the entire system can be adjusted by simple and rapid changes in the application data to the desired behavior. The source code of the generic software is not to changed. A multiple reuse is possible thereby. If it is well done, even the unit tests should be reuseable, without any change. The EN 50128 also states that proven, generic software can be reused repeatedly in this way. These are important advantages. Read more
