Computer software testing method and apparatus

A method of software testing including the steps of:

• (a) automatically parsing a computer program to locate at least one inline template and/or member function defined inline within at least one template class, wherein the inline function is defined within a header file;
• and
• (b) automatically inserting, into said header file, instrument code to provide at least one coverage evaluation function.

Software testing apparatus comprising:

• an instrumenter that accepts a computer program as an input, parses the computer program to locate at least one insertion point, and inserts instrument code at the insertion point to provide an instrumented computer program;
• and
• an executor that executes the instrumented computer program and generates incremental coverage results in response to the inserted instrument code, the incremental coverage results indicating exercised portions of the instrumented computer program that were unreached by at least one previous execution of the instrumented computer program, the incremental coverage results being provided without requiring the instrumenter to re-instrument the computer program subsequent to said previous execution.

Software testing apparatus comprising:

• instrumenting means including inputting means for accepting a computer program as an input, parsing means for parsing the computer program to locate at least one insertion point, and inserting means for inserting instrumentation code at the insertion point to provide an instrumented version of the computer program;
• and
• executing means coupled to the instrumenting means, the executing means for executing the instrumented version of the computer program, the executing means including outputting means for outputting at least incremental coverage results indicating exercised portions of the instrumented computer program that were unreached by at least one previous execution of the instrumented computer program version, the incremental coverage results being provided without requiring the instrumenting means to re-instrument the computer program subsequent to said previous execution.