research-article

A Unified Test Case Prioritization Approach

Authors:

Lingming Zhang,

Gregg Rothermel,

Hong MeiAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM), Volume 24, Issue 2

Article No.: 10, Pages 1 - 31

https://doi.org/10.1145/2685614

Published: 23 December 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Test case prioritization techniques attempt to reorder test cases in a manner that increases the rate at which faults are detected during regression testing. Coverage-based test case prioritization techniques typically use one of two overall strategies: a total strategy or an additional strategy. These strategies prioritize test cases based on the total number of code (or code-related) elements covered per test case and the number of additional (not yet covered) code (or code-related) elements covered per test case, respectively. In this article, we present a unified test case prioritization approach that encompasses both the total and additional strategies. Our unified test case prioritization approach includes two models (basic and extended) by which a spectrum of test case prioritization techniques ranging from a purely total to a purely additional technique can be defined by specifying the value of a parameter referred to as the f_p value. To evaluate our approach, we performed an empirical study on 28 Java objects and 40 C objects, considering the impact of three internal factors (model type, choice off_p value, and coverage type) and three external factors (coverage granularity, test case granularity, and programming/testing paradigm), all of which can be manipulated by our approach. Our results demonstrate that a wide range of techniques derived from our basic and extended models with uniform f_p values can outperform purely total techniques and are competitive with purely additional techniques. Considering the influence of each internal and external factor studied, the results demonstrate that various values of each factor have nontrivial influence on test case prioritization techniques.

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Cited By

Zhao RZhang SZhu ZShang YWang W(2025)E2E test execution optimization for web application based on state reuseJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.271437:1Online publication date: 22-Jan-2025
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Xie HLei YLi MYan MZhang SFilkov VRay BZhou M(2024)Combining Coverage and Expert Features with Semantic Representation for Coincidental Correctness DetectionProceedings of the 39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3691620.3695542(1770-1782)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
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Laaber CYue TAli S(2024)Evaluating Search-Based Software Microbenchmark PrioritizationIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2024.338083650:7(1687-1703)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
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Index Terms

A Unified Test Case Prioritization Approach
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Software verification and validation
      1. Software defect analysis
        Software testing and debugging

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology Volume 24, Issue 2

December 2014

224 pages

ISSN:1049-331X

EISSN:1557-7392

DOI:10.1145/2702120

Editor:
David S. Rosenblum
National University of Singapore, Singapore

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Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Publication History

Published: 23 December 2014

Accepted: 01 September 2014

Revised: 01 July 2014

Received: 01 January 2014

Published in TOSEM Volume 24, Issue 2

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Cited By

Zhao RZhang SZhu ZShang YWang W(2025)E2E test execution optimization for web application based on state reuseJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.271437:1Online publication date: 22-Jan-2025
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/smr.2714
Xie HLei YLi MYan MZhang SFilkov VRay BZhou M(2024)Combining Coverage and Expert Features with Semantic Representation for Coincidental Correctness DetectionProceedings of the 39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1145/3691620.3695542(1770-1782)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3691620.3695542
Laaber CYue TAli S(2024)Evaluating Search-Based Software Microbenchmark PrioritizationIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/TSE.2024.338083650:7(1687-1703)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/TSE.2024.3380836
Levasseur MBadri M(2024)Prioritizing unit tests using object-oriented metrics, centrality measures, and machine learning algorithmsInnovations in Systems and Software Engineering10.1007/s11334-024-00550-9Online publication date: 2-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11334-024-00550-9
Altiero FCorazza ADi Martino SPeron ALibero Lucio Starace L(2024)Regression test prioritization leveraging source code similarity with tree kernelsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.265336:8Online publication date: 5-Aug-2024
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Yang LChen JYou HHan JJiang JSun ZLin XLiang FKang Y(2023)Can Code Representation Boost IR-Based Test Case Prioritization?2023 IEEE 34th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE59848.2023.00077(240-251)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
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Zhao YHao DZhang L(2023)Revisiting Machine Learning based Test Case Prioritization for Continuous Integration2023 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME)10.1109/ICSME58846.2023.00032(232-244)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2023
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Yu JWu YXie XLe WMa LChen YHu JZhang FGrundy JPollock LPenta M(2023)GameRTS: A Regression Testing Framework for Video GamesProceedings of the 45th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE48619.2023.00122(1393-1404)Online publication date: 14-May-2023
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Ufuktepe ETuglular T(2023)Application of the Law of Minimum and Dissimilarity Analysis to Regression Test Case PrioritizationIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.328321211(57137-57157)Online publication date: 2023
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