Reducing Regression Test Size by Exclusion

Gallagher, Keith; Hall, Tracy; Black, Susan; Tahvildari, Ladan; Canfora, Gerardo

doi:10.1109/icsm.2007.4362628

Reducing Regression Test Size by Exclusion

Gallagher, Keith; Hall, Tracy; Black, Susan; Tahvildari, Ladan; Canfora, Gerardo

Authors

Keith Gallagher

Tracy Hall

Susan Black

Ladan Tahvildari

Gerardo Canfora

Abstract

Operational software is constantly evolving. Regression testing is used to identify the unintended consequences of evolutionary changes. As most changes affect only a small proportion of the system, the challenge is to ensure that the regression test set is both safe (all relevant tests are used) and unclusive (only relevant tests are used). Previous approaches to reducing test sets struggle to find safe and inclusive tests by looking only at the changed code. We use decomposition program slicing to safely reduce the size of regression test sets by identifying those parts of a system that could not have been affected by a change; this information will then direct the selection of regression tests by eliminating tests that are not relevant to the change. The technique properly accounts for additions and deletions of code. We extend and use Rothermel and Harrold’s framework for measuring the safety of regression test sets and introduce new safety and precision measures that do not require a priori knowledge of the exact number of modification-revealing tests. We then analytically evaluate and compare our techniques for producing reduced regression test sets.

Citation

Gallagher, K., Hall, T., Black, S., Tahvildari, L., & Canfora, G. (2007). Reducing Regression Test Size by Exclusion. In IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2007, 2-5 October 2007, Paris ; proceedings (154-163). https://doi.org/10.1109/icsm.2007.4362628

Conference Name	23rd International Conference on Software Maintenance
Conference Location	Paris, France
Start Date	Oct 2, 2007
End Date	Oct 5, 2007
Publication Date	Oct 1, 2007
Deposit Date	Jul 26, 2007
Publicly Available Date	Mar 26, 2010
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Pages	154-163
Book Title	IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, ICSM 2007, 2-5 October 2007, Paris ; proceedings.
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1109/icsm.2007.4362628
Additional Information	Conference dates: 2 - 5 October 2007

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