Component+ methodology. Built-in contract testing. Method and process

This report represents one of the two parts of the methodology and process of Built-in Testing (BIT) technology that has been developed within the European Union IST 5th Framework Programme in the project Component+ (EC-IST-1999-20162). The aim of this work is to devise a technology and methodology that can check the pairwise interactions of components in component-based software construction at integration and deployment time. Such pairwise interactions are also defined as contracts. Built-in contract testing is based on building test functionality into components, in particular tester components on the client side and testing interfaces on the server side of a pairwise contract. Since building test software into components has implications with the overall component-based development process, the technology is integrated and made to supplement an existing component-based development methodology, the KobrA method. This report initially outlines the concepts of the KobrA method that are important for built-in contract testing, provides a step-by-step guide on how to devise built-in contract testing artefacts on the basis of the KobrA method, and finally discusses further implications that built-in contract testing has on typical object and component technology concepts