Verifying Framework-Based Applications by Establishing Conformance

The use of object-oriented frameworks is one way to increase productivity by reusing both design and code. In this paper, a framework-based application is viewed as composed by a framework part and an increment. It is difficult to relate the intended behaviour of the final application to specific increment requirements, it is therefore difficult to test the increment using traditional testing methods. Instead, the notion of increment conformance is proposed, meaning that the increment is designed conformant to the intentions of the framework designers. This intention is specified as a set of composability constraints defined as an essential part of the framework documentation. Increment conformance is established by verifying the composability constraints by means of code and design inspection. Conformance of the increment is a necessary but not sufficient condition for correct behaviour of the final application