Automated Analysis and Verification of Application Program Interfaces (APIs)

The Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program has defined a set of standard application programming interfaces (APIs) to facilitate construction of software-defined radios. The standards define how an Operating Environment and Waveforms interact with each other. The APIs are defined in the Interface Definition Language (IDL). We apply our Conforma infrastructure for artifact assessment developed under SBIR N07-137. We develop Conforma plug-ins to verify APIs represented by IDL prior to compilation. We compare the IDL as defined in the JTRS standard to the IDL that is present in a software package delivered by a vendor to the JTRS program (termed developer IDL). Currently a portion of testing is automated through BeyondCompare, however BeyondCompare does not allow the tester to define or modify the set of rules of its syntax checker. In contrast, Conforma is a collection of open source components that is driven by a verification process and set of rules. Also the reports that Conforma generates are driven by a flexible reporting engine. Deficiencies detected include differences in names of IDL files, improper use of naming conventions (e.g., upper or lower case), differences in ordering of the APIs, and missing content from the developer IDL.