Test Case Prioritization Approach for Sequence of Events Using Complexity Factor

Abstract

Test case prioritization (TCP) is a method to prioritize and schedule test cases. Some approaches have been introduced to minimize the time, cost, and effort for testing the software based on the test cases that are higher priority. Since the more complex the software program, the more intensive the test should be carried out. Thus, complexity is one of the factors that affect the effectiveness of the test case prioritization. However, the existing approaches for measuring complexity have some limitations. This is due to inaccuracy in finding the weightage value for complexity as the value is useful to determine the test case prioritization. Consequently, a complexity metric measurement is needed to determine the weightage value. Hence, this paper presents work on TCP using complexity factors to enhance the accuracy in prioritizing the test cases for event sequences. This work uses Branch Coverage Expectation (BCE) for complexity measurement, in which BCE has been proven its usefulness empirically in the previous research. The event-weightage value based on the complexity is then assigned and used to prioritize the test cases while the Average Percentage of Fault Detected (APFD) metric is used to evaluate the proposed approach. A tool has been developed to ease the process as well as to facilitate the evaluation purposes. The results show the need to combine the complexity factor with other factors to improve the proposed TCP's effectiveness.