SOTA User's Guide - Version 1.0 |
SOTA is a tool for static program analysis and structure-oriented program testing (Structure-Oriented Testing and Analysis). In the course of a structure-oriented program test, the tool determines the source code coverage during the test, calculates the corresponding coverage metrics and provides a visual representation of the results. This allows the user to evaluate the program test with regards to source code coverage. Source code sections that have not been covered or conditions that have not been tested adequatly can be identified easily. SOTA is not directly responsible for testing the program but serves as a tool for evaluating test cases and developing additional tests.
SOTA determines the coverage by source code instrumentation, ie the program to be tested must be available as compilable source code.
SOTA 1.0 only works on Java programs, but was developed to be able to support all major imperative and object-oriented programming languages. To use SOTA for other programming languages the user has to provide a parser as well as various classes for mapping the structure of the programming language to a more abstract structure. This is specified in detail in the developer documentation.
The program was developed as a standalone Eclipse-RCP-application and runs under Windows 2000 and upwards. For use in automatic testing systems, the non-GUI functionality of SOTA is provided by the library SOTA-ATM.jar which also serves as an API for integrating SOTA into other programs.
Chapter 2 covers the main features of the program and ways to use it. The operation of the program is then described in detail in Chapters 4-6, adopting, In Chapters 4 and 5, a systematic as well as, in Chapter 6, a process-oriented approach. The latter includes typical application scenarios in the form of tutorials. Lastly, all dimensions and other terms used in this manual are specified to provide a better understanding.
The program was developed for exclusive usage in teaching!