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On Reducibility of Developer-Written Unit Tests in C#

Authors:
Arpit Christi
David Weber

Keywords: program debugging; software testing; test case reduction

Abstract:
Test case reduction is employed to help developer isolate and locate faults in complex software systems if the failing test is complex and contains a lot of non failure-inducing elements. Reduced test still contains the exact same failure inducing component as the original test. Thus, the smaller test assists developers by focusing their attention on the faulty aspect of the program quickly. Researchers have focused their attention on improvement of the test reduction process. The outcome of the test reduction is not studied thoroughly. We study the result of the test case reduction when algorithms like Delta Debugging are used to minimize the tests. We evaluate (1) test reduction size based on the category of a statement and (2) effect of the category of a statement on reduction. The developer-written tests are just like any other code - containing the same structures, elements, and components as the rest of the program. If we consider the program as an abstract syntax tree, our results demonstrate that (1) leaf nodes are removed in larger quantity and (2) leaf nodes have higher probability of removal.

Pages: 17 to 23

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2024

Publication date: May 26, 2024

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2519-8394

ISBN: 978-1-68558-178-7

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Dates: from May 26, 2024 to May 30, 2024