Final Thesis: The Limits of Application Programming Interfaces
Abstract: This paper deals with the approach of examining standard specifications. Standard specifications make it possible to exchange implementations without clients noticing this change. Using the OpenGL specification as an example, a testing strategy has been developed that is designed to test software specifications from the perspective of an external tester. Three OpenGL implementations are compared for their compliance with the standard. The selected implementations are covering a broad spectrum from low-budget on-board graphics card to a high-end professional card. These graphics cards support different versions of the specification. This paper discusses a way to select a suitable function subset and shows how the specification specifies wanted and unwanted variation. This thesis does not analyze all possible errors of OpenGL but delivers basic approaches how specifications have to be tested, what opportunities graphics card manufacturers have and where the testing of specifications fails.
Keywords: Specifications, Specification Failures, OpenGL, OpenGL Specification, OpenGL Testing
PDFs: Master Thesis, Work Description
Reference: Christian Friedrich. The Limits of Application Programming Interfaces. Master Thesis, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg: 2013.