Skip to main content
Log in

Intelligent Local Search for Test Case Minimization

  • Original Contribution
  • Published:
Journal of The Institution of Engineers (India): Series B Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

For performing efficient regression testing, minimization of test suites is one of the primary approaches. Various kinds of test case minimization techniques have been proposed in the past, in order to do this minimization. However, due to the inherent hardness of this problem, the search for an efficient approach is still going on. In this paper, we propose the application of an intelligent local search algorithm (STAGE), for doing this optimization. The proposed approach performs local search with multiple restarts, using Hill Climbing. But the restart points for the local search are not chosen randomly, rather intelligent decisions are taken for choosing the next starting point. We have observed promising results for the selected subject programs, upon the application of this approach.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. R. Gupta, A reconfigurable LIW architecture and its compiler. Technical Report 87-3. Dept. Computer Science, Univ. Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1987

  2. R. Guma, M.L. Soffa, Compile-time techniques for improving scalar access performance in parallel memories. IEEE Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 2(2), 138–148 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. T.H. Cormen, C.E. Leiserson, R.L. Rivest, C. Stein, Introduction to Algorithms, 2nd edn. (MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. A. Aho, J. Hopcroft, J. Ullman, The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms, vol. 1, Addison-Wesley Series in Computer Science and Information Processing (Addison-Wesley, Reading, 1974)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  5. V. Chvatal, A greedy heuristic for the set-covering problem. Math. Oper. Res. 4(3), 233–235 (1979)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. S. Yoo, M. Harman, Regression testing minimization, selection and prioritization: a survey. Softw. Test. Verif. Reliab. 22(2), 67–120 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. L. Zhang, J. Zhou, D. Hao, L. Zhang, H. Mei, Prioritizing junit test cases in absence of coverage information, in Proceedings of International Conference on Software Maintenance. IEEE, pp. 19–28 (2009)

  8. D. Blue et al., Interaction-based test-suite minimization. in Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering. IEEE Press (2013)

  9. L. Zhang, S. Hou, C. Guo, T. Xie, H. Mei, Time-aware test case prioritization using integer linear programming, in Proceedings of International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (2009), pp. 213–224

  10. A. Gotlieb, D. Marijan. Flower: optimal test suite reduction as a network maximum flow, in Proceedings of the 2014 International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis. ACM (2014)

  11. J.A. Jones, M.J. Harrold, Test-suite reduction and prioritization for modified condition/decision coverage. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 29(3), 195–209 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Jun-Wei Lin, Chin-Yu. Huang, Analysis of test suite reduction with enhanced tie-breaking techniques. Inf. Softw. Technol. 51(4), 679–690 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. H.-Y. Hsu, O. Alessandro, Mints: a general framework and tool for supporting test-suite minimization. in IEEE 31st International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2009. IEEE (2009)

  14. A. Shi, et al. Balancing trade-offs in test-suite reduction, in Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering. ACM (2014)

  15. T.Y. Chen, M.F. Lau, A new heuristic for test suite reduction. Inf. Softw. Technol. 40(5–6), 347–354 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. D. Jeffrey, N. Gupta, Improving fault detection capability by selectively retaining test cases during test suite reduction. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 33(2), 108–123 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. M.J. Harrold, R. Gupta, M.L. Soffa, A methodology for controlling the size of a test suite. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol. 2(3), 270–285 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. C.-T. Lin, K.-W. Tang, C.-D. Chen, G.M. Kapfhammer, Reducing the Cost of Regression Testing by Identifying Irreplaceable Test Cases, in Proceedings of the 6th ICGEC’12

  19. X.Y. Ma, Z.F. He, B.K. Sheng, C.Q. Ye, A genetic algorithm for test-suite reduction, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (2005), pp. 133–139

  20. Y. Zhang, J. Liu, Y. Cui, X. Hei, An improved quantum genetic algorithm for test suite reduction, in IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Automation Engineering (CSAE) (2011)

  21. D. Hao, T. Xie, L. Zhang, X. Wang, J. Sun, H. Mei, Test input reduction for result inspection to facilitate fault localization. Autom Softw. Eng 17(1), 5–31 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. S.K. Mohapatra, S. Prasad, Minimizing Test Cases to Reduce the Cost of Regression Testing, in Proceedings of the 8th INDIACom; INDIACom-2014

  23. S.K. Mohapatra, S. Prasad, Evolutionary search algorithm for Test Case Prioritization, in 2013 International Conference on Machine Intelligence Research and Advancement (2009)

  24. S.K. Mohapatra, S. Prasad, B.P. Kar, Test suit reduction by finding cost optimal representative set. Int. J. Adv. Technol. Eng. Res. (IJATER) 4(3) (2014)

  25. J.A. Boyan, A.W. Moore, Learning evaluation functions for global optimization and boolean satisfiability, in AAAI/IAAI (1998)

  26. B. Selman, H.A. Kautz, B. Cohen, Noise strategies for improving local search, in AAAI, vol. 94 (1994) (pp. 337–343)

  27. H.R. Lourenço, O.C. Martin, T. Stützle, Iterated local search, in Handbook of metaheuristics (Springer, Boston, 2003), pp. 320–353

  28. L. Zhang, D. Marinov, L. Zhang, S. Khurshid, An Empirical Study of JUnit Test-Suite Reduction, in Proceedings of the 22nd ISSRE’11 (2011), pp. 170–179

  29. S.K. Mohapatra, S. Prasad, Using chemical reaction optimization for test case minimization problem. Int. J. Softw. Eng. Technol. Appl. 2(1), 22–40 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  30. N. Mansour, K. El-Fakih, Simulated annealing and genetic algorithms for optimal regression testing. J. Softw. Maint. 11(1), 19–34 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. J. Black, E. Melachrinoudis, D. Kaeli, Bi-criteria models for all-uses test suite reduction, in Proceedings of 26th International Conference on Software Engineering, IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA (2004), pp. 106–115

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sudhir Kumar Mohapatra.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mohapatra, S.K., Mishra, A.K. & Prasad, S. Intelligent Local Search for Test Case Minimization. J. Inst. Eng. India Ser. B 101, 585–595 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40031-020-00480-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40031-020-00480-7

Keywords

Navigation