TracePoint Technology Ships Visual Coverage; Delivering Fast and Thorough Test Coverage to Windows Developers.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1997--TracePoint Technology, Inc. today announced it has begun shipping Visual Coverage(tm), a powerful code coverage analysis tool for Windows developers and QA professionals.

Visual Coverage improves code quality by clearly identifying exactly which portions of the code have not been tested, enabling developers to drill down on those portions of the application that need further analysis. This flexibility allows retrieval of the most useful information and helps obtain the highest level of coverage possible for superior application quality.

Visual Coverage delivers detailed coverage information through a graphical interface that makes it easy to browse through test coverage results and quickly navigate to the source code. Coverage information can be displayed in a variety of formats, including pie charts, bar charts, and multiple sort orders. With Visual Coverage, developers can selectively include or exclude code for analysis, and easily identify all dead code for deletion to streamline an application.

"Visual Coverage significantly accelerates the testing process by enabling developers to work directly on executables and dll files, without the use of source code or object files," said Amitabh Srivastava, TracePoint CTO and VP of Engineering. "With its high level of precision and fast results, Visual Coverage helps ensure that untested code never reaches end users."

"The ability to work with binary code in Visual Coverage is a tremendous advantage because we don't have to spend time recompiling modified source code every time we want to test a new build," said Maribeth Ahne, Associate Programmer at Lexmark International. "Visual Coverage's intuitive user interface makes it much easier to use than other code coverage products we've tried, and we're very pleased with the accuracy of the results."

Visual Coverage's robust reporting features enable developers to generate a report on the percent of code executed as well as the specific areas that need further testing. For each test run, developers can select coverage on any or all of the following:

-- Function coverage - shows which functions have and have not

been executed -- Class coverage - view coverage by classes and by methods -- Code coverage - identifies which instructions have and have not

been executed -- Line coverage - maps completed execution to specific lines of

source code -- Branch coverage - shows which logical branches were and weren't

taken -- Multiple condition coverage - Shows whether each condition was

covered with both the true and false values -- Call Pair coverage - identifies which calls were and weren't

executed

The Benefits of Binary Code Instrumentation (BCI)

Visual Coverage uses TracePoint's patented Binary Code Instrumentation (BCI) technology, which gathers information using code instrumentation rather than PC sampling. In code instrumentation, tracepoints or "software probes" are added into compiled and linked binaries to collect data on the application's execution. This technique makes it possible to gather more detailed and accurate information and enables developers to work on executables and dlls -- no source code or obj files are required.

Pricing and Availability

Visual Coverage is available now for a suggested retail price of $599.00.

TracePoint Technology

TracePoint Technology, Inc., based in San Jose, California is an independent subsidiary of Digital Equipment Corporation. TracePoint is committed to providing leading edge solutions for the Win32 Intel platform, providing programmers with fast, reliable and easy-to-use tools. For further information call: 408/283-5377, fax: [phone], www: http://www.tracepoint.com .

CONTACT: TracePoint Technology

Piper Gianola, 408/283-5377

or

Nadel Phelan

Paula Phelan, 408/439-5570 x222

[e-mail]