Abstract: An incremental files system stores only changed files relative to a base set of read-only files such the each session can manipulate shared files as though dealing with a complete local snapshot copy. In the preferred embodiment, the incremental file system intercepts open/create requests for files in the base set of read-only files. Further read or write access to the original file is then redirected to either the original file or a shadow file copy of the original file in accordance with a delta file. The delta file and the shadow file are both stored in a shadow directory in a local storage area associated with the requesting session. When a session requests access to change the contents of an original file, a delta file and shadow file are located or created in the shadow directory. The shadow file, when created, is initialized with the present contents of the original file.

Abstract: Methods and associated structures and systems for automating software test procedures so as to enable automated black box and white box testing techniques to be performed in an automated manner. The present invention further provides for test sequences to be easily maintained in synchronization with corresponding changes in the underlying source code files. In particular, white box and black box test sequences are described in a test language of the present invention in a manner which is embedded within comments of the programming language used to implement the software product. Such comments are ignored by software development tool sets. Testing tools of the present invention parse the source code files to extract white box and black box test sequences defined in the comments therein.

Abstract: A monitor passively observes traffic on a bus connecting a computer with a block-oriented mass storage device, such as a disc. The monitor parses the traffic on the bus to identify read and write operations and the bus address/block address they are intended for. The monitor creates an original confidence indicator for writes, which it then stores in a memory of its own. The memory location at which the original confidence indicator is stored is defined by a data structure indexed by the bus address/block address combination. When at a later time that same bus address/block address is read from, the monitor creates a comparison confidence indicator from data being sent from the block-oriented mass storage device to the computer, retrieves the corresponding original confidence indicator from the data structure in its memory, and compares the two. If they do not match there has been data corruption and an appropriate indication is issued to the bus or the computer.