An automatic approach to object-oriented software testing and metrics for C++ inheritance hierarchies

In this paper, we propose a concept named unit repeated inheritance (URI) to realize object-oriented testing and object-oriented metrics. The approach describes an inheritance level technique (ILT) as a guide to detect the software errors of the inheritance hierarchy and measure the software complexity of the inheritance hierarchy. The measurement of inheritance metrics and some testing criteria are formed based on the proposed mechanism. Thus, we use Lex and Yacc to construct a windowing tool which is used in conjunction with a conventional C++ programming environment to assist a programmer to analyze, test, and measure his/her C++ programs.