National Instruments Corporation

Ronald Byrd

James A Grey

Jon Bellin

A test executive program which provides greatly improved configurability and modularity, thus simplifying the creation, modification and execution of test sequences. The test executive program includes process models for improved flexibility, modularity and configurability. Process models provide a modular and configurable entity for encapsulating operations and functionality associated with a class of test sequences. The process model thus encapsulates a &ldquo;testing process&rdquo; for a plurality of test sequences. The process model enables the user to write different test sequences without repeating standard testing operations in each sequence. The test executive program also includes step types for improved configurability. A step type is a modular, identifiable unit configured by the user which defines common properties and/or operations associated with a plurality of steps. Instances of the step type incorporate this common functionality and/or properties from the step type, and thus the user is not required to hard code that functionality and/or properties in each instance or step. The test executive program also provides distributed type storage and conflict resolution. When the user loads a file which includes a stored type, the method performs conflict resolution, including determining if the loaded type conflicts with one or more previously loaded/registered types. If the types do conflict, then the test executive or user selects a type, preferably using the version data associated with each type. The test executive system also performs automatic result collection to automatically collect the results of each step. The user can enable or disable result collection for a particular sequence or for the entire test station.

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Ronald Byrd