Patent ID: 8707255

Claim:
A method to test compatibility between two software components of a network of control devices, with each software component having at least one corresponding technical interface description that comprises at least one value describing at least one feature of the software component, said technical interface description conforming to a certain description standard, said description standard specifying the at least one feature described in the least one corresponding technical interface description, comprising: providing each description standard with a hierarchic position in a hereditary hierarchy of description standards, wherein the hereditary hierarchy is formed such that each description standard specifies every feature specified by its hierarchic next higher description standard, and further specifies at least an additional feature; determining, based on the hereditary hierarchy, the closest common description standard in the hereditary hierarchy in reference to the software components to be compared; based on the closest common description standard, determining and comparing the values, in the respective technical interface descriptions, that describe the common features of the corresponding software components to each other; and reporting to the user when the value of a feature reveals an incompatibility between the software components to be compared, wherein software components of the control device network are composed via a particular graphic network design tool, where an interface manager necessary for a comparison is determined and executed depending on the hereditary hierarchy during the operation of the network design tool.