Re-computing Coverage Information to Assist Regression Testing

Abstract

This paper presents a technique that leverages an existing regression test-selection algorithm to compute accurate, updated coverage data on a version of the software, Pi+1, without rerunning any test cases that do not execute the changes from the previous version of the software, Pi, to Pi+1-Users of our technique can avoid the expense of rerunning the entire test suite on Pi+1 or the inaccuracy produced by previous approaches that estimate coverage data for Pi+1 or reuse outdated coverage data from Pi. This paper also presents a tool, RECOVER, that implements our technique, along with a set of empirical studies. The studies show the inaccuracies that can exist when an application-regression-test selection-uses estimated and outdated coverage data. The studies also show that the overhead incurred by our technique is negligible.