Welcome to the summer issue of VectorCAST Directions. We've had a busy first half of 2008, the most obvious new development is our web site. It was completely redesigned and hopefully you will find it easier to navigate to the information you need. Several of our key customers have been kind enough to publish joint marketing posters that provide a view into how they are successfully using our VectorCAST products on their projects. These posters are a testament to the quality of our products, and the quality of our engineering staff that provides support to these customers. Check out the current set of our customer posters.

In the coming months we will have some major new features added to VectorCAST. If you are interested in a preview of the new technology that is under development, please contact our sales team directly. We appreciate all of you who are current customers, and look forward to creating partnerships with more of you in the future.

Bill McCaffrey
Director of Marketing

Wind River vxWorks 653 version 2.2 Integration

In keeping with our practice of supporting the full range of products from Wind River Systems, VectorCAST has released an updated VectorCAST/RSP module supporting version 2.2 of the vxWorks 653 RTOS.

"Vector's integration with the VxWorks 653 Platform further extends the comprehensive design, code, test, and management capabilities of the Wind River Workbench development environment", states Rob Hoffman, VP and General Manager of Aerospace and Defense at Wind River. "This release enables joint Vector and Wind River customers to leverage the broad range of capabilities built into the Workbench development environment for the industry's leading ARINC 653 operating system".

See the full press release.

VectorCAST 4.2

Highlights

• Integration with DOORS®
  With the VectorCAST/Requirements Gateway you can now tag Requirements to VectorCAST test cases and write the corresponding pass/fail information to the DOORS® database.

• VectorCAST HTML browser now uses Internet Explorer On Windows
  The VectorCAST HTML browser has been replaced with the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. This change results in big speed improvements when opening HTML documents and reports in VectorCAST.

• VectorCAST/Cover Performance Improvements
  For customers with large projects, instrumentation time and result viewing time is much faster.

• Support for "special" floating point numbers
  VectorCAST now supports setting input and expected values to "special" floating point values like: Positive and Negative Infinity (+/-Inf), and Not-a-Number (NaN).

• Support for floating point tolerance at the test case and item level
  VectorCAST now supports setting floating point tolerances on a per-item, or per-testcase basis. The tolerance values can be absolute (e.g. +/- .001) or relative (e.g. +/- 1%)

• VectorCAST/Ada integration with GNAT GPR files
  When using the Create New Environment wizard, you now have a choice for specifying the location of the libraries that VectorCAST should look in: 1) a single directory (the default), or 2) a GNAT project file (.GPR).

Click here for Release Notes and new features in VectorCAST 4.2.

New Target Integrations

• Freescale CodeWarrior for HC12Z
• NXP Trimedia

See a full list of Compilers and Targets Supported.

QA Systems GmbH offers software development teams a complete range of software development and testing tools. The combination of leading software technology, flexible and integrated tools, and professional services make it possible to enhance and accelerate the software development process.

The QA Systems software tool portfolio includes: Static testing tools from Programming Research (QA-C and QA-C++), Dynamic testing tools from Vector Software (VectorCAST), and Requirements-Engineering tools from Visure (IRQA). Seminars and training sessions are also provided with participating software industry experts like Dr. Scott Meyers and Dr. Les Hatton. "We are excited about the new addition of the VectorCAST tools to our product offering. The VectorCAST tools for embedded unit and integration testing apply perfectly to our safety critical and business critical customers" said Andreas Sczepansky, CEO of QA Systems Gmbh.

ELIN EBG Traction GmbH, a subsidiary of Siemens, is a supplier of state-of-the art traction equipment for all types of rail vehicles. This microprocessor-based traction control and monitoring system was developed by ELIN. The ELTAS (ELIN Traction Automation System) components can function as vehicle or traction control units or as a combination of both, and are designed for use in trains. The system uses VectorCAST C/C++ with MC/DC extensions to facilitate the certification process for SIL - functions.

Since its founding in 1892 by. F. Pichler, the company has experienced more than 100 years of constant development and innovation in the field of electrotechnology. Today ELIN EBG Traction GesmbH is a subsidiary of SIEMENS. In 1927 ELIN supplied the traction equipment for one of the first electrical locomotives with single axle drive. In 1981 the first 3-phase current propulsion system with 800 kW in thyristor technology was developed. Since 1985 ELTAS microprocessor based control systems have been installed in locomotives and LRVs. Already in 1992 the first 3-phase converter in IGBT technology, with 300 kW, was installed in a low-floor tram. This long experience paired with the fact that it was always ahead of its times in the field of 3-phase current technology, means that ELIN EBG Traction has grown to be one of the leading international suppliers of traction technology. (See the customer reference poster.)

Tool Tips

Q1 - Can VectorCAST stub functions without a prototype? By default, VectorCAST will not stub functions that lack a valid prototype...

Q2 - Using a user-defined execute command. I am trying to get the VectorCAST test harness to run on a new target that is not supported....

Q3 - How do I create an environment that does not use floating point? In VectorCAST/C++, go to Tools-> Options-> C/C++....

Q4 - How do I integrate VectorCAST/Cover into my Makefile? With a valid working Makefile already established, it is possible and very beneficial to incorporate VectorCAST/Cover into the Make environment...

Q5 - I am not getting a coverage data file after I run the instrumented executable. Why? I'm using VxWorks. Some operating systems (non-POSIx, like vxWorks) do not close file pointers when exiting an executable...

If you have more questions like this, maybe our knowledgebase already has the answer. You just need your Vector Software "username" and "password" to access it or register now for access.

Events

Vector Software to attend Real-Time & Embedded Conference on September 25, 2008 in Tempe, AZ - US.

Vector Software to attend MedConf 2008 on September 23rd-25th, 2008 in Munich, Germany.
Vector Software will present at the lecture titled "Meeting the FDA requirements for software testing of medical devices" on September 24th, 2008. Learn More...

Vector Software to attend Real-Time & Embedded Conference on October 21, 2008 in San Diego, CA - US.

Vector Software to attend Real-Time & Embedded Conference on October 23, 2008 in Long Beach, CA - US.

Vector Software to attend Safetronic 2008 on November 4th & 5th, 2008 in Munich, Germany.

Interested in finding out more about our products? Please contact us to arrange an online demo powered by WebEx.