An Example Presentation

1
Benefits of
for Testing
I
Ian Gilchrist, IPL
2
Eclipse and Testing

• Ian Gilchrist, Software Products Mngr, IPL
• Ian.gilchrist_at_ipl.com
• IPL is a Bath-based software house
• 250 software engineers
• Mainly bespoke software development
• Produce and market own software testing tools
• Cantata (for C, C, and Java)
• AdaTEST 95 (for Ada)
• We have been using Eclipse since 2005

3
Overview

• What is Eclipse?
• Brief summary of community, pillars and projects
• Eclipse resources that impact device deployment /
  testing
  
• Commercial IDEs
• Plug-ins relevant to testing
• More information
• Main advantages of Eclipse
• For vendors and users
• C a unit / integration test tool
• What it does and why Eclipse helps
• Product demo on current Europa release

4
What is Eclipse?
A open development platform Eclipse is an open s
ource community whose projects are focused on
building an open development platform comprised
of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for
building, deploying and managing software across
the lifecycle.

• Over 60 open source projects in 7 different
  "pillars"
  
• Enterprise Development
• Embedded and Device Development
• Rich Client Platform
• Rich Internet Applications
• Application Frameworks
• Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)
• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

5
Relevant Eclipse Projects

• Device Software Development Platform       
• Device Debugging          
• ERCP - Embedded Rich Client Platform         
• Mobile Tools for Java       
• Native Application Builder         
• Target Management       
• Tools for mobile Linux
• Test and Performance Tools Platform       
• Monitoring Tools           
• Tracing Profiling Tools                      
• Testing Tools

6
Relevant Eclipse Resources

• Commercial IDEs
• QNX Momentics
• LynuxWorks Luminosity
• GreenHills MULTI
• TI Code Composer Essentials
• Nokia Carbide
• Wind River Workbench

• 1000 Plug-ins
• SCM tools
• CVS
• SVN
• ClearCase
• Bug tracking tools
• Bugzilla
• Trac
• ClearQuest
• External editors
• Emacs
• Vi
• SlickEdit

• Eclipse Platform Releases
• Yearly (June) simultaneous projects
• Calisto 06 Europa 07 Ganymede 08
• Includes CDT

7
Eclipse Rich Client Platform

• A platform for building applications
• Minimal set of plug-ins
• Eclipse RCP for building applications that work
  in conjunction with application servers,
  databases, and other backend resources to deliver
  a rich user experience on the desktop.

8
Why is Eclipse RCP used?

• COTS Platform Advantages
• Quick build times (dont have to build everything
  from scratch)
  
• Professional and modern looking
• Native look-and-feel
• Deployable on multiple platforms
• Allows developers to focus on their application
  value-add
  
• Commercial Advantages
• RCP components are of high quality, are actively
  maintained, and are open source.
  
• Many other Eclipse components available for reuse
  (e.g. Help UI, Update Manager, Cheat Sheets,
  Intro, etc.).
  
• Allows development of an open-ended platform

9
Eclipse Platform

• Eclipse is an open tools platform
• Designed so that its components could be used to
  build just about any client application up to a
  full IDE
  
• UI paradigm is based on editors, views, and
  perspectives
  
• Applications and tools are implemented as
  plug-ins
  

10
Eclipse Plug-ins

• What is a plug-in?
• Java code in a Java Archive (JAR) library
• Some read-only files, and other resources such as
  images, web templates, message catalogs, native
  code libraries, etc.
  
• Tool plug-ins
• Small tools usually a single plug-in, complex
  tools use many grouped in features as a product
  
• Thousands of commercial and open source plug-ins
• What they are used for
• Check them out at Eclipse Plug-in Central
  www.eclipseplugincentral.com
  

11
Plug-in Technical Concepts

• Interconnections
• Each plug-in has a plug-in manifest declaring its
  interconnections to other plug-ins
  
• A plug-in declares any number of named extension
  points, and any number of extensions to one or
  more extension points in other plug-ins.
  
• A plug-ins extension points can be extended by
  other plug-ins.
  
• Plug-in awareness (declarative wiring)
• Platform run-time discovers the set of available
  plug-ins, reads their manifests, and builds an
  in-memory plug-in registry
  
• Registry holds extension point info without
  activating the plug-in or loading of any of its
  code
  
• This property is key to supporting a large base
  of installed plug-ins only some of which are
  needed in any given user session.
  

12
Plug-in Categories

• Built on Eclipse
• Products that include the key components of the
  Eclipse platform. This type of product is able to
  run standalone with no prerequisites of other
  Eclipse components.
• Eclipse Ready
• Products that can be added to an existing Eclipse
  based product.
  

13
Eclipse Integration Levels

• Highest level
• Written in Java, using the Eclipse Platform APIs
• Lowest Level
• Opens a separate windows in order to communicate
  with the user and must access user data via the
  underlying file system
  
• In between
• The workbench has built-in support for embedding
  any OLE document as an editor (Windows only).
  
• A plug-in tool can implement a container that
  bridges the Eclipse Platform API to an ActiveX
  control so that it can be used in an editor,
  view, dialog, or wizard (Windows only).
• A plug-in tool can use AWT or Swing to open
  separate windows. This option provides loose UI
  integration, but allows tight integration below
  the UI.

14
Other Eclipse technologies

• WTP
• Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) project extends
  the Eclipse platform with tools for developing
  Web and Java EE applications.
  
• Some interesting sub-projects include
• The AJAX Toolkit Framework (ATF)
• JavaServer Faces Tools (JSF)
• BIRT
• Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT)
  project is a reporting system for web
  applications.
  
• Main components are
• a report designer based on Eclipse,
• a runtime component that you can add to your
  app server.
  
• a charting engine that lets you add charts to
  your own application

15
Eclipse Platform UI Toolkits

• Eclipse Workbench (IDE)
• Provides an extensible UI to the user
• API and implementation are built from two
  toolkits
  
• SWT ( Standard Widget Toolkit)
• mcWidget set and graphics library integrated with
  the native window system but with an
  OS-independent API.
  
• JFace
• mcUI toolkit implemented using SWT that
  simplifies common UI programming tasks.
  
• Eclipse SDK (development)
• Eclipse Platform
• JDT (Java Development Tools)
• PDE (Plug-in Development Environment)

16
Eclipse CDT

• CDT C/C Development Toolkit
• An extension to the Eclipse platform in the form
  of a plug-in.
  
• Operating system independent and open source
• Provides
• Editor (syntax highlighting, code assist, code
  templates etc)
  
• Debug
• Project Management
• Managed Build Mechanism (make)
• Integrated with GCC compiler toolchain but also
  supporting parallel different programming
  languages
  
• Supports designing, coding configuration
  management etc
  

17
Further Information

• Eclipse Foundation       
• www.eclipse.org       
•    
• Eclipse Plug-in Central EPIC      
• www.eclipseplugincentral.com Commercial and
  Free      
  
• Conferences and Magazines 

18
Main Benefits of Eclipse

• Users       
• Single platform independent IDE          
• Open source platform with rich built-in features
   
  
• Predictable release schedule      
• Developments in the right areas (enterprise and
  devices)
  
• Extensible and compatible plug-in ecosystem
• Vendors       
• Tool and plug-in compatibility           
• Commercial platform for development

19
Specific Benefits for Testing

• Utilise CDT capabilities for code level testing
           
  
• Extended editing of test scripts and source code
• (AST Abstract Syntax Tree)
• Project properties
• Workspace preferences
• Configurable build tools
• Plug-in vendor specialisation            
• Compatibility in development / testing
  toolchains 
  
• Build tools
• Editors
• SCM Tools
• Allows best in class plug-in selection of tools

20
Note on Java programming

• All Plug-ins are written in Java.
• Java encourages three views
• Data (can come from files)
• Presentations (ordering of data)
• User Interface (can work directly on data or
  request presentations)

Presentation
Data
Data in file(s)
UI User Interface
21
Cantata built on Eclipse

• Cantata consists of 10 main Eclipse plug-ins
• Core manages data and presentation layers
• CDT (IPL) constructs AST (Abstract Syntax
  Tree)
  
• Properties sets options (elements in data
  layer)
  
• Editor -
• Load Files - moves data from files to/from data
  layer
  
• Test Script Manager generates script for
  editing
  
• Invoke a results presentation
• Test Results Tree
• Report Viewer
• Coverage Results Tree
• Coverage Viewer

22
Cantata built on Eclipse
Cantata
CDT (IPL)
Load
Properties
Editor
Report Tree
Report View
Cov. Tree
Test Script Mngr
Cov. View
23
Cantata and other IDEs
Cantata/ Momentics Plug-in
Other IDE e.g. QNX Momentics
CDT
Cantata
Core
Eclipse
24
Cantata and Eclipse

• Cantata V5.0 was released in 2006
• Based on Eclipse 3.2
• Current Cantata (5.2) was released in 2007
• Based on Eclipse 3.3
• Next version of Cantata (5.3) will be released
  in 2008
  
• Based on Eclipse 3.4

25
Demonstration

26
Reverse String Demo

• Specification
• Takes a character string input, reverses the
  order for the character string return.
  
• If a NULL string is received return
• ERROR no string
• Calls strlen to get string length and malloc (C)
  or operator new (C) to allocate memory for the
  string. If memory fails return an error string
  
• ERROR no memory

27
To the Demo
28
Summary why use Eclipse?

• These are the main reasons
• Eclipse offers a convenient, reliable, and
  evolving basis for any tool UI
  
• It also contains many features useful for test
  tools
  
• Having a tool built-on Eclipse means that it
  can be integrated easily with other similar tools
  e.g. IDEs
  
• Cantata needs to work with other suppliers
  tool chains
  
• Customers are increasingly demanding an Eclipse
  experience