Abstract
In this paper, we propose a new approach to calculate a path's reliability along three basic programming structures, which include sequential, branching, and looping structures. The path's reliability is then taken to approximate the system's reliability, and an example is evaluated to validate and show the effectiveness of proposed method. The numerical example yields several findings. First, the proposed method can be effectively used in the early stages of testing. Second, the path reliability is highly relative to system reliability, and the estimated error of the proposed method is acceptable. Third, with higher test coverage on path testing, the accuracy of system reliability estimation can be further improved. Therefore, the proposed method is a viable alternative method for architecture-based software reliability modeling. ©2008 IEEE.