A reference model of grouped-metadata object and a change model based on it appling for component-based software integration testing

Component metadata is one of the most effective methods to improve the testability of component-based software. In this paper, we firstly give a formal definition of component, and summarize the basic meanings of component metadata. Based on these, an idea of Grouped-Metadata Object (GMO) is introduced, which is divided into two types, respectively named descriptive metadata and operative metadata. And a general framework of descriptive metadata and operative metadata is further given, which is consisted of several groups. Each group includes several attributes, and their meanings are described in detail. Furthermore, we give a formal reference model of GMO using class diagram of UML. Combining with the above formal model, we present change model used in GMO and introduce an idea to map all changes inside component to the changes in component interfaces, mainly referring to changes of public method and variables. Here we introduce a concept of Method Dependency Graph(MDG) to implement the mapping. Then the changes are reflected in relevant attributes in GMO provided to component users in order to facilitate component-based software integration testing and regression testing. Finally the case study based on previous formal model is done, and the corresponding results are given. All these show effectively that the models we presented are valid and helpful for component-based software integration testing and regression testing.