Identification of Test Cases Duplication: Systematic Literature Review

Testing is an important activity in the software development cycle to ensure product quality. The evolution of software systems requires the development of new test cases to test new or modified requirements. This situation generates a potential duplicity of tests and makes test suites to grow affecting the time and resources required to execute them. This systematic literature review aims to analyze the current state of research about the identification of test case duplication including the synthesis of the data collected using the narrative synthesis method. The results obtained were the collection of twenty primary studies that included: thirteen algorithms, five approaches, two techniques, and two tools. In addition, some studies reported results on reduced test suite, reduced execution time, and reduced fault detection. In addition, different problems related to test cases duplication were collected; the main recurrent problem was the injection of duplication when new tests are created for modified software. Two other recurring problems include the increment of testing cost and the effects of coverage reduction due to removal of test case duplication. In conclusion, test case duplication a subject requiring more exploration given the number of primary studies identified together with the current needs for high quality systems in the industry with reduced and more challenging release cycles.