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Next: Results and Conclusion Up: Generating Test Coverage Analyzer Previous: Working of the Grammar

Summary

Grammar instrumentation is one of the most important and time consuming processes while generating a Test Coverage Analyzer. The instrumentation is by and large performed manually. As the grammars of programming languages are generally large in size, manual instrumentation is prone to errors. Moreover, test coverage analysis for most programming languages is similar in nature, it usually includes the instrumentation of constructs that transfer the control. We can take advantage of this similarity by designing an approach that takes the grammar for a language and specifications for instrumentation and generates the test coverage analyzer. So, for generating test coverage analyzer for a new language would just need the grammar of the language and little modification in the probe specifications.

In this chapter, an approach for automatic instrumentation of grammar has been presented. It takes the grammar of the language and the probe specifications and generates the instrumented grammar. We also described the design of a tool that implements this approach. By using this tool the efforts spent in generating the test coverage analyzer for a language are substantially reduced.


Rahul Jain
2000-03-13