Using Component Metadata based on Dependency Relationships Matrix to improve the Testability of Component-based Software

Component-based software development technique and its intensive use in the industry has led to the wide research in various aspects of component-based systems. How to improve the testability of component-based software is an interesting and useful technique in the component-based software engineering. In this paper, we summarize eight types of dependency between two components in the CBSs and the notion of metadata. Then the definitions of component dependency graph (CDG) and component direct dependency graph(CDDG) are given. Based on these, gives the definition of dependency relationship matrix of the component C_m(C_mDM) and detailed dependency relationship matrix of the component C_m(C_mDM). And we further describe the structure of C_mDDM. Based on these, we further present the approaches to find dependencies relationships: code-based approach and specification-based approach. Finally, we apply an application example implementing integration testing when a component named RegisterStuInformation is integrated into a CBS, and present a table with test coverage figure to illustrate the validity of our approach.