Test Case Prioritization Using Requirements-Based Clustering

• Published in: 2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation pp. 312 - 321
• Main Authors: Arafeen, Md Junaid, Hyunsook Do
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-03-2013
• Subjects: Complexity theory; Educational institutions; empirical study; Fault detection; Java; Measurement; regression testing; requirements-based clustering; Software; test case prioritization; Testing
• ISBN: 9781467359610; 1467359610
• ISSN: 2159-4848; 2771-3091
• DOI: 10.1109/ICST.2013.12

The importance of using requirements information in the testing phase has been well recognized by the requirements engineering community, but to date, a vast majority of regression testing techniques have primarily relied on software code information. Incorporating requirements information into the current testing practice could help software engineers identify the source of defects more easily, validate the product against requirements, and maintain software products in a holistic way. In this paper, we investigate whether the requirements-based clustering approach that incorporates traditional code analysis information can improve the effectiveness of test case prioritization techniques. To investigate the effectiveness of our approach, we performed an empirical study using two Java programs with multiple versions and requirements documents. Our results indicate that the use of requirements information during the test case prioritization process can be beneficial.