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Selected publications by date
Selected publications by category
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Test-Suite Reduction and Prioritization for Modified Condition/Decision Coverage
Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance
Florence, Italy, November 2001
James A. Jones and Mary Jean Harrold
Abstract
Software testing is particularly expensive for developers of
high-assurance software, such as software that is produced for
commercial airborne systems. One reason for this expense is the
Federal Aviation Administration's requirement that test suites be
modified condition/decision coverage (MC/DC) adequate. Despite its
cost, there is evidence that MC/DC is an effective verification
technique, and can help to uncover safety faults. As the software is
modified and new test cases are added to the test suite, the test
suite grows, and the cost of regression testing increases. To address
the test-suite size problem, researchers have investigated the use of
test-suite reduction algorithms, which identify a reduced test suite
that provides the same coverage of the software, according to some
criterion, as the original test suite, and test-suite prioritization
algorithms, which identify an ordering of the test cases in the test
suite according to some criteria or goals. Existing test-suite
reduction and prioritization techniques, however, may not be effective
in reducing or prioritizing MC/DC-adequate test suites because they do
not consider the complexity of the criterion. This paper presents new
algorithms for test-suite reduction and prioritization that can be
tailored effectively for use with MC/DC. The paper also presents the
results of a case study of the test-suite reduction algorithm.
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