• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.465-475
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• 2002

An object-oriented framework supports efficient component-based software development by providing a flexible architecture that can be decomposed into easily modifiable and composable classes. Object-oriented frameworks require thorough testing as they are intended to be reused repeatedly In developing numerous applications. Furthermore, additional testing is needed each time the framework is modified and extended for reuse. To test a framework, it must be instantiated into a complete, executable system. It is, however, practically impossible to test a framework exhaustively against all kinds of framework instantiations, as possible systems into which a framework can be configured are infinitely diverse. If we can classify possible configurations of a framework into a finite number of groups so that all configurations of a group have the same structural or behavioral characteristics, we can effectively cover all significant test cases for the framework testing by choosing a representative configuration from each group. This paper proposes a systematic method of classifying object structures of a framework hotspot and extracting structural test patterns from them. This paper also presents how we can select an instance of object structure from each extracted test pattern for use in the frameworks hotspot testing. This method is useful for selection of optimal test cases and systematic construction of executable test target.