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CONFORMANCE

Conformance is usually defined as a way to determine if an implementation faithfully meets the requirements of a standard or specification. Determining whether a product faithfully implements a standard is essential to creating robust, interoperable solutions. The NIST/ITL Conformance Pages provide an online reference to documents, presentations, test suites related to conformance, conformance issues, and conformance-related topics.
 

General Conformance

orange ball What is this thing called conformance?(html file)
An overview of conformance including a discussion of terminology, methodology, and benefits. Additionally, various test suites for XML technologies are presented. [Rosenthal, Brady; NIST/ITL Bulletin, January 2001]

orange ball Presentation: What is this thing called conformance?(ppt file)
Presentation on conformance including what it is, how it works, and what the benefits are. Additionally specific examples from available conformance test suites (XML, DOM, XSLT) are presented. [Rosenthal, Brady, XML 2000 Conference, December 2000]

orange ball Presentation: Conformance(ppt file)
Presentation given at the ebXML Tokyo meeting, November 2000. An overview of conformance is given, including the topics and issues that need to be addressed when including a conformance clause in a specification. [Skall, Rosenthal, November 2000]

orange ball Conformance Testing(html)
With any standard, eventually the discussion turns to “how will we know if an implementation conforms to the standard?” This paper defines conformance and conformance testing as well as describes the components of a conformance testing program. [Gray, Goldfine, Rosenthal, Carnahan]

orange ball Overview of Conformance Testing(html)
Discussion of conformance terms, assessment program, types of testing, and factors for success. [Gray]

Validation and Certification

Many of the documents and presentations in the General Conformance area, include a discussion of validation and certification programs.

orange ball Conformance Testing and Certification Model for Software Specifications(html file)
This paper identifies the key roles, activities, and products involved in creating conformance testing and certification programs. [Carnahan, Rosenthal, Skall, ISACC ’98 Conference, March 1998]

Test Methodologies

orange ball Interactive Conformance Testing for VRML(html file)
Paper describing the test development strategy and design issues in developing the NIST Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) conformance test suite. [Brady, Rosenthal]

orange ball Conformance Testing of Object-Oriented Components specified by State/Transition Classes (pdf)
This paper provides a conformance testing technique for new components to be integrated into an existing software system. The approach relies on finate state machines, database modeling and processing techniques, and algorithms for analysis and traversal of directed graphs. [Gallagher, 2000]

orange ball Formal Specification Languages in Conformance Testing (html file)
Report assessing the potential the advantages of applying formal specification languages rather than natural language, to the problems of conformance testing.[Liburdy, Gray, Rosenthal, Software Quality Week, 1998]

Test Suites for XML Technologies

orange ball XML - A Conformance Test Suite, jointly developed by OASIS and NIST, contains over 1000 test files and an associated test report for W3C XML 1.0 Recommendation.
orange ball DOM - Conformance Test Suites, developed by NIST, for both the ECMAScript and Java bindings of the W3C DOM Level 1 Recommendation
 



Email any comments about this page to: lynne.rosenthal@nist.gov

created: January 30, 2001