What is the meaning of the sequence of values produced by a program component?

The “sequence of values” produced by a program component means the following: for an assignment statement or parameter vertex, the sequence of values assigned to the target variable; for an input statement, the sequence of values read in; for a predicate, the sequence of boolean values to which the predicate evaluates; and, for an output statement, the sequence of values output.

What is the operator used in the computation of the program differences?

The same ∆ operator used in the computation of the program differences, is used to capture changed behavior: ∆(A, Base) captures the changed behavior of A with respect to Base and ∆(B, Base) captures the changed behavior of B with respect to Base.

What is the safe assumption for the algorithm?

if the algorithm cannot determine that two components have isomorphic calling-context slices, then it makes the safe assumption that they do not have common execution patterns.

What is the advantage of reusing test results?

Reusing test results avoids the expense of running modified on test cases for which it can be guaranteed that modified and certified will produce the same results.

What are the transitive dependence edges of a PDG?

Interprocedural flow dependence edges connect corresponding actual-in and formal-in vertices, and corresponding formal-out and actual-out vertices; an interprocedural control dependence edge connects each call-site vertex to the entry vertex of the called-procedure (see Figure 1).

What is the common mistake when considering an affected component a?

The mistake most often made when considering an affected component a is to assume that a test case t that tests a in certified continues to test a in modified.

What is the concept of common execution patterns?

To identify reusable test cases and test results in a program with procedures and procedure calls, the authors introduce the notion of common execution patterns, an interprocedural extension of equivalent execution patterns [1].

Open AccessJournal Article10.1109/32.624306

Semantics guided regression test cost reduction

David Binkley

- 01 Aug 1997

- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineerin...

- Vol. 23, Iss: 8, pp 498-516

218

TL;DR: Two complimentary algorithms for reducing the cost of regression testing are presented, one of which produces a program called Differences that captures the semantic change between Certified, a previously tested program, and Modified, a changed version of Certified.

Abstract: Software maintainers are faced with the task of regression testing: retesting a modified program on an often large number of test cases. The cost of regression testing can be reduced if the size of the program is reduced and if old test cases and results can be reused. Two complimentary algorithms for reducing the cost of regression testing are presented. The first produces a program called Differences that captures the semantic change between Certified, a previously tested program, and Modified, a changed version of Certified. It is more efficient to test Differences, because it omits unchanged computations. The program Differences is computed using a combination of program slices. The second algorithm identifies test cases for which Certified and Modified produce the same output and existing test cases that test new components in Modified. The algorithm is based on the notion of common execution patterns. Program components with common execution patterns have the same execution pattern during some call to their procedure. They are computed using a calling context slice. Whereas an interprocedural slice includes the program components necessary to capture all possible executions of a statement, a calling context slice includes only those program components necessary to capture the execution of a statement in a particular calling context. Together with Differences, it is possible to test Modified by running Differences on a smaller number of test cases. This is more efficient than running Modified on a large number of test cases. A prototype implementation has been built to examine and illustrate these algorithms.

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Most frequently asked questions

1. What are the contributions in "Semantics guided regression test cost reduction" ?

The second algorithm is based on the notion of common execution patterns, which is the interprocedural extension of the notion introduced by Bates and Horwitz.

2. What are the future works mentioned in the paper "Semantics guided regression test cost reduction" ?

This would allow us to study larger “ real-world ” programs.

3. What is the use of the program for predicting the weather?

The programs used are a program for predicting the weather, which mis-computes the next days expected wind speed, and an ALU emulator, which requires the correction of a bug in the increment instruction.

4. What are the three groups of test suite adequacy criteria?

Test suite adequacy criteria can be divided into at least three groups: control-flow based criteria (e.g., allstatements), data-flow based criteria [39], and program dependence graph based criteria [1].

Figure 2. (Par t of) the slice of the SDG in Figure 1 taken with respect to the actual-out ver tex labeled “yout : = y” and the program to which is corresponds. This program contains only the looping control from the program in Figure 1.

Figure 5. The third and four th columns show the two par ts of ∆(modified,certified) computed from programs certified and modified shown in the first two columns. (The box indicates the modification made in modified.) The union of these two programs (really their SDGs) yields a program (SDG) that captures the changed computations of modified with respect to certified. This union is shown in the rightmost column.

Figure 12. Certified, modified, and differences for Illustration 2.

Table 2: sizes of the example programs (in statements)

Figure 7. Program “Cer tified” has a bug in it: a rather than b appears in the if statement (the auxiliary function pow takes only positive pow ers). For illustration purposes, assume the only directly affected point of modified is the predicate of the if statement (in fact statements [4] and [5] are also DAPs because they have new incoming control dependence edges). The affected points of modified are all the ver tices subordinate to the if statement (which are reachable from the if statement via control dependence edges), and statement [6], which can be reached via a flow dependence edge from affected points [4] and [5]. Because their targets are affected points, all the flow dependence edges to the two calls on procedure pow are in affected.

Citations

Program slicing

Keith Gallagher, +1 more

- 01 Sep 2008

TL;DR: Applications of program slicing are surveyed, ranging from its first use as a debugging technique to current applications in property verification using finite state models, and a summary of research challenges for the slicing community is discussed.

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Journal Article•10.1002/STV.430

Regression testing minimization, selection and prioritization: a survey

Shin Yoo, +1 more

- 01 Mar 2012

- Software Testing, Verification & Reliabi...

TL;DR: This paper surveys each area of minimization, selection and prioritization technique and discusses open problems and potential directions for future research.

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•Journal Article•10.1109/32.962562

Prioritizing test cases for regression testing

Gregg Rothermel, +3 more

- 01 Oct 2001

- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineerin...

TL;DR: Test case prioritization techniques schedule test cases for execution in an order that attempts to increase their effectiveness at meeting some performance goal as discussed by the authors, such as rate of fault detection, a measure of how quickly faults are detected within the testing process.

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•Journal Article•10.1007/S10664-005-3861-2

Supporting Controlled Experimentation with Testing Techniques: An Infrastructure and its Potential Impact

Hyunsook Do, +2 more

- 01 Oct 2005

- Empirical Software Engineering

TL;DR: The infrastructure that is being designed and constructed to support controlled experimentation with testing and regression testing techniques is described and the impact that this infrastructure has had and can be expected to have.

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•Proceedings Article•10.1145/347324.348910

Prioritizing test cases for regression testing

Sebastian Elbaum, +2 more

- 01 Aug 2000

TL;DR: Can prioritization techniques be effective when aimed at specific modified versions; what tradeoffs exist between fine granularity and coarse granularity prioritized techniques; and can the incorporation of measures of fault proneness into prioritization technique improve their effectiveness?

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References

Journal Article•10.1109/TSE.1984.5010248

Program Slicing

Mark Weiser

- 01 Jul 1984

- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineerin...

TL;DR: Program slicing as mentioned in this paper is a method for automatically decomposing programs by analyzing their data flow and control flow. But it is not a technique for finding statement-minimal slices, as it is in general unsolvable, but using data flow analysis is sufficient to find approximate slices.

...read moreread less

3.3K

Program slicing

Keith Gallagher, +1 more

- 01 Sep 2008

...read moreread less

2.8K

•Journal Article•10.1145/77606.77608

Interprocedural slicing using dependence graphs

Susan Horwitz, +2 more

- 03 Jan 1990

- ACM Transactions on Programming Language...

TL;DR: A new kind of graph to represent programs is introduced, called a system dependence graph, which extends previous dependence representations to incorporate collections of procedures (with procedure calls) rather than just monolithic programs.

...read moreread less

1.8K

•Book

Denotational Semantics: The Scott-Strachey Approach to Programming Language Theory

Joseph E. Stoy

- 01 Sep 1981

TL;DR: Treats various kinds of languages, beginning with the pure-lambda-calculus and progressing through languages with states, commands, jumps, and assignments.

...read moreread less

1.4K

Journal Article•10.1109/TSE.1985.232226

Selecting Software Test Data Using Data Flow Information

S. Rapps, +1 more

- 01 Apr 1985

- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineerin...

TL;DR: This paper defines a family of program test data selection criteria derived from data flow analysis techniques similar to those used in compiler optimization, arguing that currently used path selection criteria are inadequate.

...read moreread less

1.1K

...

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Semantics guided regression test cost reduction

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Most frequently asked questions

1. What are the contributions in "Semantics guided regression test cost reduction" ?

2. What are the future works mentioned in the paper "Semantics guided regression test cost reduction" ?

3. What is the use of the program for predicting the weather?

4. What are the three groups of test suite adequacy criteria?

5. What is the meaning of the sequence of values produced by a program component?

6. What is the operator used in the computation of the program differences?

7. What is the safe assumption for the algorithm?

8. What is the advantage of reusing test results?

9. What are the transitive dependence edges of a PDG?

10. What is the common mistake when considering an affected component a?

11. What is the concept of common execution patterns?

Figures

Citations

Program slicing

Regression testing minimization, selection and prioritization: a survey

Prioritizing test cases for regression testing

Supporting Controlled Experimentation with Testing Techniques: An Infrastructure and its Potential Impact

Prioritizing test cases for regression testing

References

Program Slicing

Program slicing

Interprocedural slicing using dependence graphs

Denotational Semantics: The Scott-Strachey Approach to Programming Language Theory

Selecting Software Test Data Using Data Flow Information

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