1. Verification and Validation
Reference: Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 6th edition, Chapter 19
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2. Objectives
To introduce software verification and validation and to discuss the distinction between them
To describe the difference between static and dynamic V & V
To describe the program inspection process and its role in V & V
To explain static analysis as a verification technique
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3. Verification vs. Validation
Verification: "Are we building the product right?"
The software should conform to its specification.
Validation: "Are we building the right product?"
The software should do what the user really requires.
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4. The V & V Process
Is a whole life-cycle process - V & V must be applied at each stage in the software process.
Example: Peer document reviews
Has two principal objectives
The discovery of defects in a system
The assessment of whether or not the system is usable in an operational situation
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5. V & V Goals
Verification and validation should establish confidence that the software is fit for its purpose.
This does NOT mean completely free of defects.
Rather, it must be good enough for its intended use. The type of use will determine the degree of confidence that is needed.
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6. V & V Confidence
Depends on the system’s purpose, user expectations, and marketing environment
System purpose
The level of confidence depends on how critical the software is to an organization (e.g., safety critical).
User expectations
Users may have low expectations of certain kinds of software
Marketing environment
Getting a product to market early may be more important than finding defects in the program
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7. Static vs. Dynamic V & V
Code and document inspections - Concerned with the analysis of the static system representation to discover problems (static v & v)
May be supplement by tool-based document and code analysis
Software testing - Concerned with exercising and observing product behavior (dynamic v & v)
The system is executed with test data and its operational behavior is observed
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8. Code Inspections (Static V & V)
Involves examining the source code with the aim of discovering anomalies and defects
Defects may be logical errors, anomalies in the code that might indicate an erroneous condition (e.g., an uninitialized variable), or non-compliance with coding standards.
Intended for defect detection, not correction
Very effective technique for discovering errors
Saves time and money – the earlier in the development process an error is found, the better
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9. Inspection Success
Many different defects may be discovered in a single inspection, whereas with testing one defect may mask another so that several executions/tests are required.
Inspections reuse domain and programming knowledge so reviewers are likely to have seen the types of errors that commonly arise.
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10. Inspections and Testing
Inspections and testing are complementary and not opposing verification techniques.
Inspections can check conformance with a specification, but not conformance with the customer’s real requirements.
Inspections cannot check non-functional characteristics such as performance, usability, etc.
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11. Inspection Preparation
A precise specification must be available.
Team members must be familiar with the organization’s standards.
Syntactically correct code must be available.
An error checklist should be prepared.
Management must accept that inspection will increase costs early in the software process.
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12. Ethics Question
A manager decides to use the reports of program inspections as an input to the staff appraisal process. These reports show who made and who discovered program errors.
Is this ethical management behavior?
Would it be ethical if the staff were informed in advance that this would happen?
What difference might it make in the inspection process?
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13. Inspection Procedure The inspection procedure is planned.
A system overview is presented to the inspection team.
Code and associated documents are distributed to inspection team in advance.
Inspection takes place and discovered errors are noted.
Modifications are made to repair discovered errors.
Re-inspection may or may not be required.
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14. Inspection Teams Made up of: Roles may vary from these (e.g., Reader).
Author of the code being inspected
Inspector who finds errors, omissions, and inconsistencies
Reader who reads the code to the team
Moderator who chairs the meeting
Scribe who makes detailed notes regarding errors
Roles may vary from these (e.g., Reader).
Multiple roles may be taken on by the same member.
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15. Inspection Checklist
Checklist of common errors should be used to drive the inspection
Error checklist is programming language dependent
The “weaker” the language type checking, the larger the checklist (e.g., C vs. Java)
Examples: variable initializations, constant naming, loop termination, array bounds, etc.
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16. Inspection checks

17. Inspection Rate Measurements at IBM by M. E. Fagan:
500 statements/hour during overview
125 source statements/hour during individual preparation
statements/hour can be inspected
Inspection is, therefore, an expensive process
Inspecting 500 lines costs about 40 person-hours effort
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18. Automated Static Analysis
Static analyzers are software tools for source text processing.
They parse the program text and try to discover potentially erroneous conditions.
Very effective as an aid to inspections. A supplement to, but not a replacement for, inspections.
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19. Static Analysis Checks
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20. Stages of Static Analysis
Control flow analysis. Checks for loops with multiple exit or entry points, finds unreachable code, etc.
Data use analysis. Detects uninitialized variables, variables assigned twice without an intervening use, variables that are declared but never used, etc.
Interface analysis. Checks the consistency of procedure declarations and their use
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21. Stages of Static Analysis (con’t)
Information flow analysis. Identifies the dependencies of output variables. Does not detect anomalies itself but highlights information for code inspection or review
Path analysis. Identifies paths through the program and sets out the statements executed in that path. Potentially useful in the inspection and testing processes.
Both of these stages generate vast amounts of information. Must be used with care.
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22. LINT static analysis 138% more lint_ex.c #include <stdio.h>
printarray (Anarray)
int Anarray; {
printf(“%d”,Anarray); }
main ()
int Anarray[5]; int i; char c;
printarray (Anarray, i, c);
printarray (Anarray) ;
139% cc lint_ex.c
140% lint lint_ex.c
lint_ex.c(10): warning: c may be used before set
lint_ex.c(10): warning: i may be used before set
printarray: variable # of args. lint_ex.c(4) :: lint_ex.c(10)
printarray, arg. 1 used inconsistently lint_ex.c(4) :: lint_ex.c(10)
printarray, arg. 1 used inconsistently lint_ex.c(4) :: lint_ex.c(11)
printf returns value which is always ignored
LINT static analysis