Patent ID: 6178524
Filing Date: 2001-01-23
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
An information processing system comprising:at least first and second hardware component types, the second component type being a subcomponent of the first hardware component type, each component type including one or more members;control software for controlling the operation of the system, including a first software class associated with the first hardware component type and a second software class associated with the second hardware component type, each of the first and second software classes defining a constructor for respectively creating one or more instances of the first and second software class, each instance corresponding to one member of the associated hardware component type,the constructor for each software class further including or referencing program code for testing the operation of each of the one or more members of the associated hardware component type, the constructor defined for the first software class being designed to call the constructor defined for the second software class to initiate construction of the one or more instances of the second software class and wherein the constructor defined for the second software class includes means for flagging a test error occurring during the testing of a member of the second hardware component type to the constructor defined for the first software class.