Chinese Journal of Computers   Full Text
Title	Test Case Prioritization Based on Test Suite Design Information
Authors	QU Bo NIE Chang-Hai XU Bao-Wen
Address	(School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096) (Jiangsu Institute of Software Quality, Nanjing 210096)
Year	2008
Issue	No.3(431—439)
Abstract &   Background	Abstract Test case prioritization is an effective and practical technique of regression testing. This paper proposes a set of new prioritization algorithms based on test suite design information which has not been used to calculate selection probabilities of test cases in previous work. Compared with existing algorithms, the new algorithms can obtain and make use of run-time information to calculate and adjust test case prioritization in time, and are more efficient in detecting faults with low time complexity. The empirical studies performed under Windows platform show that new algorithms are helpful to detect more regression faults in shorter time. keywords regression testing; test case prioritization; algorithm; software engineering background This work is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (60425206, 60773104 and 60633010,60503033), Excellent Talent Foundation on Teaching and Research of Southeast University, Open Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Software Engineering in Wuhan University and Doctor Subject Fund of Education Ministry (20060286020). The research work reported in this paper focuses on test case prioritization for regression testing. Test case prioritization is an effective and practical technique that helps to increase the effectiveness of test cases at meeting some performance goals when software evolves. It schedules test cases so that those with the highest priority, according to some criterion, are executed earlier in the regression testing process than lower priority test cases. Existing prioritization approaches mainly focus on sorting test cases based on their coverage information and execution history. And empirical studies indicate that test case prioritization techniques could increase the effectiveness of test cases especially in resource constrained testing environment. There are numerous techniques have been reported in literatures. However, none of these prioritization schemes explicitly consider the test suite design information. This paper presents a novel prioritization technique and corresponding algorithms. Comparing with existing techniques, the method could resort test cases according to the test suite design information and dynamic feed back. The experiments also shows that the new algorithms are helpful to detect more regression faults in shorter time.