An improved method for test case prioritization by incorporating historical test case data

Test case prioritization reorders test cases from a previous version of a software system for the current release to optimize regression testing. We have previously introduced a technique for test case prioritization using historical test case performance data. The technique was based on a test case prioritization equation, which directly computes the priority of each test case using the historical information of the test case using an equation with constant coefficients. This technique was compared just with random ordering approach. In this paper, we present an enhancement of the aforementioned technique in two ways. First, we propose a new prioritization equation with variable coefficients gained according to the available historical performance data, which acts as a feedback from the previous test sessions. Second, a family of comprehensive empirical studies has been conducted to evaluate the performance of the technique. We have compared the proposed technique with our previous technique and the technique proposed by Kim and Porter. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique in accelerating the rate of fault detection in history-based test case prioritization.     

基于历史信息的自适应测试用例优先级技术

在软件迭代开发的过程中,测试用例优先级技术因能有效地提高回归测试的效率,降低时间开销和人力成本,受到研究者的广泛关注,许多优化方法相继被提出。但是目前的研究多倾向于以需求和覆盖率作为排序准则,并且是一种静态排序。为此,提出一种基于历史信息的测试用例优先级技术,并在测试用例的执行过程中动态自适应地调整测试用例的优先级,以尽可能早地发现缺陷,达到预期的检错目标。在课题组开发的项目中运用该方法,验证了该方法的有效性。     

由需求得到回归测试用例排序技术

为了提高回归测试用例集的测试效率和有效性,提出由需求得到回归测试用例排序技术及其实现算法。由需求得到回归测试用例排序技术,将与软件需求相关的需求描述度、需求实现复杂度、需求稳定度和需求覆盖度等因素应用于测试用例排序,以缺陷检测加权平均百分比作为度量标准。通过实验,比较排序后用例和未排序用例缺陷检测情况,实验结果表明该技术排序后的回归测试用例集,能够尽早地发现更多的软件错误,有效提高回归测试效率,保证软件质量。     

Factor oriented requirement coverage based system test case prioritization of new and regression test cases

Test case prioritization involves scheduling test cases in an order that increases the effectiveness in achieving some performance goals. One of the most important performance goals is the rate of fault detection. Test cases should run in an order that increases the possibility of fault detection and also that detects the most severe faults at the earliest in its testing life cycle. In this paper, we propose to put forth a model for system level test case prioritization (TCP) from software requirement specification to improve user satisfaction with quality software that can also be cost effective and to improve the rate of severe fault detection. The proposed model prioritizes the system test cases based on the six factors: customer priority, changes in requirement, implementation complexity, completeness, traceability and fault impact. The proposed prioritization technique is validated with two different validation techniques and is experimented in three phases with student projects and two sets of industrial projects and the results show convincingly that the proposed prioritization technique improves the rate of severe fault detection.     

基于动态相似度的错误定位优先排序方法

在软件测试中,错误定位优先排序通过优化测试用例的执行次序来提高错误定位的效果,并将检测错误和定位错误相结合,以降低测试成本。 提出了一种基于动态相似度的错误定位优先排序方法,在相似度计算中,引入了语句怀疑度,提高了相似度计算的有效性以及错误定位的准确度;同时分析并验证了不同测试用例优先排序算法对后续定位错误的影响。在6个C基准程序上,针对3种广泛采用的测试用例优先排序算法和2种错误定位技术进行了实验,结果表明提出的方法能提高错误定位的准确度和效率。     

基于蚁群算法的测试用例优先排序

测试用例优先排序技术通过优化测试用例的执行次序来提高软件测试的效率,是增强型软件测试和回归测试的重要研究课题。针对基于需求的测试用例优先排序问题,提出了一种基于蚁群算法的求解方法,采用不同的测试用例间距离及用例序列评价策略,给出了该方法的2种不同实现方式。首先,针对黑盒测试特点,设计了基于需求的一般性测试用例序列评价指标;其次,提出测试用例吸引度概念,基于测试用例吸引度定义了测试用例间的距离;然后,给出了信息素更新策略、最优解集更新策略、局部最优解突变策略等主要设计策略,分别实现了该方法基于距离和基于指标的2种实现方式。实验结果表明,该方法具有很好的全局寻优能力,整体效果上优于粒子群算法、遗传算法和随机测试。     

Prioritizing test cases for regression testing

Test case prioritization techniques schedule test cases for execution in an order that attempts to increase their effectiveness at meeting some performance goal. Various goals are possible; one involves rate of fault detection, a measure of how quickly faults are detected within the testing process. An improved rate of fault detection during testing can provide faster feedback on the system under test and let software engineers begin correcting faults earlier than might otherwise be possible. One application of prioritization techniques involves regression testing, the retesting of software following modifications; in this context, prioritization techniques can take advantage of information gathered about the previous execution of test cases to obtain test case orderings. We describe several techniques for using test execution information to prioritize test cases for regression testing, including: 1) techniques that order test cases based on their total coverage of code components; 2) techniques that order test cases based on their coverage of code components not previously covered; and 3) techniques that order test cases based on their estimated ability to reveal faults in the code components that they cover. We report the results of several experiments in which we applied these techniques to various test suites for various programs and measured the rates of fault detection achieved by the prioritized test suites, comparing those rates to the rates achieved by untreated, randomly ordered, and optimally ordered suites     

Experiments with test case prioritization using relevant slices

Software testing and retesting occurs continuously during the software development lifecycle to detect errors as early as possible and to gain confidence that changes to software do not introduce defects. Once developed, test suites are reused and updated frequently, and their sizes grow as software evolves. Due to time and resource constraints, an important goal during regression testing of software is to prioritize the execution of test cases in a suite so as to improve the chances of increasing the rate of fault detection. Prior techniques for test case prioritization are based on the total number of coverage requirements exercised by the test cases. In this paper, we present a new approach to prioritize test cases that takes into account the coverage requirements present in the relevant slices of the outputs of test cases. We have implemented three different heuristics based on our relevant slicing based approach to prioritize test cases and conducted experiments to compare the effectiveness of our techniques with those of the traditional techniques that only account for the total requirement coverage. Our detailed experimental study and results provide interesting insights into the effectiveness of using relevant slices for test case prioritization in terms of ability to achieve high rate of fault detection.     

On the Use of Mutation Faults in Empirical Assessments of Test Case Prioritization Techniques

Regression testing is an important activity in the software life cycle, but it can also be very expensive. To reduce the cost of regression testing, software testers may prioritize their test cases so that those which are more important, by some measure, are run earlier in the regression testing process. One potential goal of test case prioritization techniques is to increase a test suite's rate of fault detection (how quickly, in a run of its test cases, that test suite can detect faults). Previous work has shown that prioritization can improve a test suite's rate of fault detection, but the assessment of prioritization techniques has been limited primarily to hand-seeded faults, largely due to the belief that such faults are more realistic than automatically generated (mutation) faults. A recent empirical study, however, suggests that mutation faults can be representative of real faults and that the use of hand-seeded faults can be problematic for the validity of empirical results focusing on fault detection. We have therefore designed and performed two controlled experiments assessing the ability of prioritization techniques to improve the rate of fault detection of test case prioritization techniques, measured relative to mutation faults. Our results show that prioritization can be effective relative to the faults considered, and they expose ways in which that effectiveness can vary with characteristics of faults and test suites. More importantly, a comparison of our results with those collected using hand-seeded faults reveals several implications for researchers performing empirical studies of test case prioritization techniques in particular and testing techniques in general     

融合聚类算法和缺陷预测的测试用例优先排序方法

持续集成环境下,软件快速更新加快了回归测试执行的频率,但缺陷快速反馈的需求对回归测试又提出了更高要求。测试用例优先排序技术研究测试用例的重要性,通常将缺陷探测能力强的测试用例优先执行,使其提早发现软件缺陷,其可解决持续集成环境下的快速反馈需求。缺陷预测技术可通过被测系统代码特征和历史缺陷来预估信息预测软件在新版本中发现缺陷的可能性,传统基于聚类的测试用例优先排序方法大多未考虑不同类簇数和特征子集对聚类结果的影响。文中将缺陷预测应用到聚类优先排序方法,构建测试用例和代码关联矩阵,对测试用例进行聚类分析,结合缺陷预测结果和最大最小距离策略指导簇间和簇内排序。通过实验验证发现,类簇数和聚类特征子集选择对排序效果有一定影响,当未能获取最佳类簇数和特征子集时,相比单一的聚类优先排序方法,所提方法可更有效地提高回归测试效率。     

A learning algorithm for optimizing continuous integration development and testing practice

Continuous integration, at its core, includes a set of practices that aim to prevent and reduce the cost of software integration issues by merging working software copies often. Regression testing is considered a good practice in software development with continuous integration, which ensures that code changes are not negatively affecting software functionality. As, nowadays, software development is carried out iteratively, with small code increments continuously developed and regression tested, it is of critical importance that continuous regression testing is time efficient. However, in practice, regression testing is often long lasting and faces scalability problems as software grows larger or as software changes are made more frequently. One contributing factor to these issues is test redundancy, which causes the same software functionality being tested multiple times across a test suite. In large-scale software, especially highly configurable software, redundancy in continuous regression testing can significantly grow the size of test suites and negatively affect the cost effectiveness of continuous integration. This paper presents a practical learning algorithm for optimizing continuous integration testing by reducing ineffective test redundancy in regression suites. The novelty of the algorithm lies in learning and predicting the fault-detection effectiveness of continuous integration tests using historical test records and combining this information with coverage-based redundancy metrics. The goal is to identify ineffective redundancy, which is maximally reduced in the resulting regression test suite, thus reducing test time and improving the performance of continuous integration. We apply and evaluate the algorithm in two industrial projects of continuous integration. The results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the efficiency of continuous integration practice in terms of decreasing test execution time by 38% on average compared to the industry practice of our case study and by 40% on average compared to the retest-all approach. The results further demonstrate no significant reduction in fault-detection effectiveness of continuous regression testing. This suggests that the proposed algorithm contributes to the state of the practice in the continuous integration development and testing of highly configurable systems.     

测试用例优先级排序技术研究

测试用例的优化技术是软件测试的重要组成部分,其目的是将测试用例按照设定的规则进行排序,以便对测试效率有所提高。介绍了其背景和基本概念,从初始测试用例的优先级排序及回归测试的测试用例优先级排序进行概述,比较了各种优先级技术所适用的测试环境和优点,指出了测试用例优化技术的一些缺点和未来的发展方向。     

基于函数调用路径的回归测试用例选择排序方法研究

针对在回归测试过程中,因为不断修复软件中存在的缺陷所造成的测试工作量大、测试效率低等问题,论文将测试用例选择与优先级排序技术相结合,以面向函数调用的路径覆盖生成方法为基础,提出了一种面向函数调用路径（Functions Calling Path, FCP）的测试用例选择与排序方法。首先根据函数调用关系图,对程序中被修改函数与其他函数的关联性进行分析,从初始测试用例集中选择测试用例,形成回归测试用例集;然后对这些测试用例进行优先级排序,并动态地调整优先级排序结果;最后,对优先级排序结果进行再次选择,确定最小的回归测试用例集。实验结果表明,测试用例选择与排序方法对优化回归测试用例是有效的,大大减少了回归测试用例数量,降低了回归测试成本。     

Prioritizing MCDC test cases by spectral analysis of Boolean functions

Test case prioritization aims at scheduling test cases in an order that improves some performance goal. One performance goal is a measure of how quickly faults are detected. Such prioritization can be performed by exploiting the fault exposing potential (FEP) parameters associated to the test cases. The FEP is usually approximated by mutation analysis under certain fault assumptions. Although this technique is effective, it could be relatively expensive compared to the other prioritization techniques. This study proposes a cost‐effective FEP approximation for prioritizing modified condition decision coverage (MCDC) test cases. A strict negative correlation between the FEP of an MCDC test case and the influence value of the associated input condition allows to order the test cases easily without the need of an extensive mutation analysis. The method is entirely based on mathematics and it provides useful insight into how spectral analysis of Boolean functions can benefit software testing.     

基于函数占用和需求分析测试代码用例自适应优先排序

在采用函数占用（覆盖）的测试代码用例优先级排序过程中,其特征一般是以函数占用代码率信息表示,容易忽视其他优先排序影响因素,对此提出基于函数占用和需求分析的测试代码用例自适应优先排序方式。首先,以测试代码用例优先级排序过程中的调用函数存在路径为参照,利用源代码信息变更影响,进行影响域的回归测试分析,并对测试代码用例集进行回归范围确定。其次,考虑测试代码用例优先级排序的需求影响因素,并确定其需求优先级评价指标,然后与调用函数源代码变更影响指标进行权重自适应融合,并设计基于函数占用和需求分析评价优先级的动态调整算法。最后,通过仿真对比显示,所提方法可提高缺陷检测正确率,降低测试成本。     

Understanding the effects of changes on the cost‐effectiveness of regression testing techniques

Regression testing is an expensive testing process used to validate modified software. Regression test selection and test‐case prioritization can reduce the costs of regression testing by selecting a subset of test cases for execution, or scheduling test cases to meet testing objectives better. The cost‐effectiveness of these techniques can vary widely, however, and one cause of this variance is the type and magnitude of changes made in producing a new software version. Engineers unaware of the causes and effects of this variance can make poor choices in designing change integration processes, selecting inappropriate regression testing techniques, designing excessively expensive regression test suites and making unnecessarily costly changes. Engineers aware of causal factors can perform regression testing more cost‐effectively. This article reports the results of an embedded multiple case study investigating the modifications made in the evolution of four software systems and their impact on regression testing techniques. The results of this study expose tradeoffs and constraints that affect the success of techniques and provide guidelines for designing and managing regression testing processes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Selecting a Cost-Effective Test Case Prioritization Technique

Regression testing is an expensive testing process used to validate modified software and detect whether new faults have been introduced into previously tested code. To reduce the cost of regression testing, software testers may prioritize their test cases so that those which are more important, by some measure, are run earlier in the regression testing process. One goal of prioritization is to increase a test suite's rate of fault detection. Previous empirical studies have shown that several prioritization techniques can significantly improve rate of fault detection, but these studies have also shown that the effectiveness of these techniques varies considerably across various attributes of the program, test suites, and modifications being considered. This variation makes it difficult for a practitioner to choose an appropriate prioritization technique for a given testing scenario. To address this problem, we analyze the fault detection rates that result from applying several different prioritization techniques to several programs and modified versions. The results of our analyses provide insights into which types of prioritization techniques are and are not appropriate under specific testing scenarios, and the conditions under which they are or are not appropriate. Our analysis approach can also be used by other researchers or practitioners to determine the prioritization techniques appropriate to other workloads.     

Risk-based test case prioritization using a fuzzy expert system

Context: The use of system requirements and their risks enables software testers to identify more important test cases that can reveal the faults associated with system components.Objective: The goal of this research is to make the requirements risk estimation process more systematic and precise by reducing subjectivity using a fuzzy expert system. Further, we provide empirical results that show that our proposed approach can improve the effectiveness of test case prioritization.Method: In this research, we used requirements modification status, complexity, security, and size of the software requirements as risk indicators and employed a fuzzy expert system to estimate the requirements risks. Further, we employed a semi-automated process to gather the required data for our approach and to make the risk estimation process less subjective.Results: The results of our study indicated that the prioritized tests based on our new approach can detect faults early, and also the approach can be effective at finding more faults earlier in the high-risk system components compared to the control techniques.Conclusion: We proposed an enhanced risk-based test case prioritization approach that estimates requirements risks systematically with a fuzzy expert system. With the proposed approach, testers can detect more faults earlier than with other control techniques. Further, the proposed semi-automated, systematic approach can easily be applied to industrial applications and can help improve regression testing effectiveness.     

测试用例排序的研究

回归测试是一个成本很高的测试过程。为了减少回归测试的成本,可以使用测试用例排序技术。测试用例排序是指按照事先确定的目标重新安排测试用例集中测试用例的执行次序,使得具有高优先级的测试用例比低优先级的测试用例在测试过程中更早执行。本文描述了测试用例排序问题;给出了两个一般测试用例排序算法,即总计排序算法和 附加排序算法;根据不同的覆盖准则（如语句、分支和定义-使用等）,可以从这两个一般算法得到对应的排序算法;最后,讨论了测试用例排序算法的有效性。     

Test case prioritization: a family of empirical studies

To reduce the cost of regression testing, software testers may prioritize their test cases so that those which are more important, by some measure, are run earlier in the regression testing process. One potential goal of such prioritization is to increase a test suite's rate of fault detection. Previous work reported results of studies that showed that prioritization techniques can significantly improve rate of fault detection. Those studies, however, raised several additional questions: 1) Can prioritization techniques be effective when targeted at specific modified versions; 2) what trade-offs exist between fine granularity and coarse granularity prioritization techniques; 3) can the incorporation of measures of fault proneness into prioritization techniques improve their effectiveness? To address these questions, we have performed several new studies in which we empirically compared prioritization techniques using both controlled experiments and case studies