Testing in resource-constrained execution environments

Resource constrained embedded devices are becoming increasingly popular and affordable. Software for these devices is often implemented in the Java programming language because the Java compiler and virtual machine provide enhanced safety, portability, and the potential for run-time optimization. It is important to verify that a software application executes correctly in the environment in which it will normally execute, even if this environment is an embedded one that severely constrains memory resources. Testing can be used to isolate defects within and establish a confidence in the correctness of a Java application that executes in a resource constrained environment. However, executing test suites with a Java virtual machine that uses dynamic compilation to create native code bodies can create significant testing time overheads if memory resources are highly constrained. This paper describes an approach that uses adaptive code unloading to ensure that it is feasible to perform testing in the actual memory constrained execution environment. Our experiments demonstrate that code unloading can reduce both the test suite execution time by 34% and the code size of the test suite and application under test by 78% while maintaining the overall size of the Java virtual machine.