Validation of Scientific Programs

This paper descmbes a comprehensive approach to the validation of computer programs. It concentrates on the use of informal validation methods, such as testing and static analysis, as opposed to more formal methods such as proofs of correctness. Although many of the methods are general and can be apphed to any software system, the emphasis ~s on the validation of individual scientific subroutines Most of the examples are m FORTRAN and some of the described techniques are closely related to features of the FORTRAN programming language. The paper describes methods for detecting programming errors (i.e., errors that arise due to mistakes in the software development process) rather than mathematmal or number representation errors. No material is included, for example, on precision errors due to cancellatmn, truncation, or round-off.