Functional coponent tests are also called black-box tests. They are simply the kind of tests which consider the system to be a "black box". This means that the testing is done without special knowledge or consideration of the internal structure of the software. The data flow or control flow, internal timings and internal interactions are deliberately unconsidered. Inputs are stimulated or supplied by peripheral devices or simulation systems. The outputs of the software are checked for their expected values and behaviour related to the supplied inputs. The following features are common to these tests:

The tests are strictly checking the functionality and performance of the software against its requirements.

The timing of the inputs and expected outputs is part of the checks, as far as it is subject to specification.

Additional to checking the required behaviour, test requirements will usually be extended to check also the behaviour at unexpected inputs. These are also called "dirty tests".

A good test environment, like our Perl based system can be also used for black-box testing i.e. functional testing of components. At the defined and specified input interface the component is stimulated with input data. In the Perl environment this is done e.g. with prefilled arrays containing the test data or by reading the test data from a file. The data are handed over to the tested function via the pass parameter interface or in case the data are static it can be set prior to execution via set-functions. The output interface is recorded and evaluated to check if the expected results were achieved. This can be used for regression testing in case the source code was modified e.g. in a refactoring process, to make sure that the code improvement or refactoring did not change the fuctionality.

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