McCabe references?

McCabe references?

[agate!library.ucla.edu!news.mic.ucla.edu!magnesium.club.cc.cmu.edu!news.s]

Can anyone provide references on "McCabe Complexity Analysis" and
"McCabe Structured Testing" in general, and wrt Ada in particular?

Many thanks,

Pat Rogers

Re: McCabe references?

[Brandon]

progers@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Pat Rogers) writes:

>Can anyone provide references on "McCabe Complexity Analysis" and
>"McCabe Structured Testing" in general, and wrt Ada in particular?

>Many thanks,

>Pat Rogers

In our "Testing Ada Software" class, we use McCabe quite a bit to
test Ada code. We have quite a bit devoted to how to apply it as
a testing procedure. As far as references, The best (other than our
class :-) ) that I can point you to are:

	Software Testing Techniques, 2nd Edition, Bezier

	The Art of Software Testing, Myers

	"An Internal Approach to Testing Horizontally Reusable
	 Software", Proceedings of the 5th Annual STC Conference, 93
		Goldfedder (Overall of where McCabe fits in to A testing
		process) 

Some particular things to note in applying McCabe to Ada:

	1) use V(G) = e - n + p + 1
	    NOT V(G) = e -n + 2p
	    where e = number of edges in graph
		  n = number of nodes in graph
		  p = number of disconeected paths

	2) Exceptions need special care w.r.t Ada.  It
	   is unrealistic (IMHO) to draw paths from each
	   line of code to the exception handler (I have 
	   heard some arguments to the contrary though :-).
	   The method, I have found works best is to treat it
	   as a case statement and either leave it as a 
	   disconnect path or connect it to the entry node.
	   Either way, it yields the same complexity.

	3) Use basis path analysis as a guide not a rule. 
	Applying McCabe with Ada must account for 
	Data Sensitivity, and some Ada specific issues
	that need a little extra attention

	4) Keep in mind that White Box Coverage of Source in
	no way implies White Box Coverage of the final 
	executable code. McCabe can also be applied (rather
	costly) at the executable level as well.


Hope this helps a little

Brandon Goldfedder
Director of Training
EVB Software Engineering, Inc.


-- 
brandon@evb.com
-------------------------------------------------------------
Brandon Goldfedder
EVB Software Engineering, Inc.