Software testing tools : analyses of effectiveness on procedural and object-orientated source code

Abstract

The levels of quality, maintainability, testability, and stability of software can be improved and measured through the use of automated testing tools throughout the software development process. Automated testing tools assist software engineers to gauge the quality of software by automating the mechanical aspects of the softwaretesting task. Automated testing tools vary in their underlying approach, quality, and ease-of-use, among other characteristics. Evaluating available tools and selecting the most appropriate suite of tools can be a difficult and time-consuming process. In this thesis, we propose a suite of objective metrics for measuring tool characteristics, as an aid in systematically evaluating and selecting automated testing tools. Future work includes further research into the validity and utility of this suite of metrics, conducting similar research using a larger software project, and incorporating a larger set of tools into similar research.