Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By : Jim Cooling
Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By: Jim Cooling

Overview of this book

From air traffic control systems to network multimedia systems, real-time systems are everywhere. The correctness of the real-time system depends on the physical instant and the logical results of the computations. This book provides an elaborate introduction to software engineering for real-time systems, including a range of activities and methods required to produce a great real-time system. The book kicks off by describing real-time systems, their applications, and their impact on software design. You will learn the concepts of software and program design, as well as the different types of programming, software errors, and software life cycles, and how a multitasking structure benefits a system design. Moving ahead, you will learn why diagrams and diagramming plays a critical role in the software development process. You will practice documenting code-related work using Unified Modeling Language (UML), and analyze and test source code in both host and target systems to understand why performance is a key design-driver in applications. Next, you will develop a design strategy to overcome critical and fault-tolerant systems, and learn the importance of documentation in system design. By the end of this book, you will have sound knowledge and skills for developing real-time embedded systems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Preface
15
Glossary of terms

10. Analyzing and Testing Source Code

The analysis is complete. The design is complete. Even more satisfying, coding (and debugging) is complete. So, where do you go from here? The logical step would seem to be to move on to code development in your target system. And that, in practice, is probably what most designers do. Now, this is fine provided the code is of first-class quality, with few errors. But what if that isn't the case? Well then, I'm afraid, you're in for a long, hard slog in order to:

  • First, get the software running
  • Second, get the software running correctly – functional correctness
  • Third, get the software running correctly and delivering the required performance – functional and temporal (time) correctness
  • Finally, keep the software running properly as corrections and updates are made – stability

The aims of this chapter are to:

  • Explain the underlying concepts related to the software testing...