An empirical study of regression test selection techniques

@article{citeulike:480546, abstract = {Regression testing is the process of validating modified software to detect whether new errors have been introduced into previously tested code and to provide confidence that modifications are correct. Since regression testing is an expensive process, researchers have proposed regression test selection techniques as a way to reduce some of this expense. These techniques attempt to reduce costs by selecting and running only a subset of the test cases in a program’s existing test suite. Although there have been some analytical and empirical evaluations of individual techniques, to our knowledge only one comparative study, focusing on one aspect of two of these techniques, has been reported in the literature. We conducted an experiment to examine the relative costs and benefits of several regression test selection techniques. The experiment examined five techniques for reusing test cases, focusing on their relative abilities to reduce regression testing effort and uncover faults in modified programs. Our results highlight several differences between the techniques, and expose essential trade-offs that should be considered when choosing a technique for practical application.}, address = {New York, NY, USA}, author = {Graves, Todd L. and Harrold, Mary J. and Kim, Jung-Min and Porter, Adam and Rothermel, Gregg }, citeulike-article-id = {480546}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/367008.367020}, journal = {ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol.}, keywords = {comparison, regression, sw\_engineering, testing}, month = {April}, number = {2}, pages = {184--208}, posted-at = {2006-09-13 21:50:37}, priority = {4}, publisher = {ACM Press}, title = {An empirical study of regression test selection techniques}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/367008.367020}, volume = {10}, year = {2001} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:480546 L3 - citeulike-article-id:480546 TI - An empirical study of regression test selection techniques JF - ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 184 EP - 208 AD - New York, NY, USA PB - ACM Press N2 - Regression testing is the process of validating modified software to detect whether new errors have been introduced into previously tested code and to provide confidence that modifications are correct. Since regression testing is an expensive process, researchers have proposed regression test selection techniques as a way to reduce some of this expense. These techniques attempt to reduce costs by selecting and running only a subset of the test cases in a program’s existing test suite. Although there have been some analytical and empirical evaluations of individual techniques, to our knowledge only one comparative study, focusing on one aspect of two of these techniques, has been reported in the literature. We conducted an experiment to examine the relative costs and benefits of several regression test selection techniques. The experiment examined five techniques for reusing test cases, focusing on their relative abilities to reduce regression testing effort and uncover faults in modified programs. Our results highlight several differences between the techniques, and expose essential trade-offs that should be considered when choosing a technique for practical application. KW - comparison KW - regression KW - sw_engineering KW - testing AU - Graves, Todd AU - Harrold, Mary AU - Kim, Jung-Min AU - Porter, Adam AU - Rothermel, Gregg PY - 2001/04// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/367008.367020 ER -