Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing

In the context of software product line (SPL), test cases are reused for testing of multiple products that have commonality. In such a case, their executions may contain repetitions of equivalent executions, which are the test executions that have the identical execution flow and produce the same te...

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Main Authors: Pilsu Jung, Jaeho Kim
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029245/
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author Pilsu Jung
Jaeho Kim
author_facet Pilsu Jung
Jaeho Kim
author_sort Pilsu Jung
collection DOAJ
description In the context of software product line (SPL), test cases are reused for testing of multiple products that have commonality. In such a case, their executions may contain repetitions of equivalent executions, which are the test executions that have the identical execution flow and produce the same testing result. In SPL testing, repeating equivalent test executions should be avoided because it does not contribute to finding new faults and unnecessarily increases the SPL testing cost. This paper defines two types of equivalent test executions and points out that equivalent test executions increase the test redundancy. To show how equivalent test executions occur in a product line, we conduct a preliminary experiment using the VendingMachine SPL and its evolved versions. Then we propose a method to reduce the test redundancy of SPL by avoiding repetition of equivalent test executions. Our experimental evaluation with two SPL systems shows that our proposed method reduces the number of test executions by 57.1% on average compared to the exhaustive execution method without sacrificing fault detection effect.
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spelling doaj-art-4b399ea0cbd94edf8c0597dbe53e64b22025-08-20T03:23:57ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-011310651110652310.1109/ACCESS.2025.357837811029245Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line TestingPilsu Jung0https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1778-8033Jaeho Kim1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5268-0074Department of Software Engineering, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South KoreaDepartment of Software Engineering, Gyeongsang National University, Jinju-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South KoreaIn the context of software product line (SPL), test cases are reused for testing of multiple products that have commonality. In such a case, their executions may contain repetitions of equivalent executions, which are the test executions that have the identical execution flow and produce the same testing result. In SPL testing, repeating equivalent test executions should be avoided because it does not contribute to finding new faults and unnecessarily increases the SPL testing cost. This paper defines two types of equivalent test executions and points out that equivalent test executions increase the test redundancy. To show how equivalent test executions occur in a product line, we conduct a preliminary experiment using the VendingMachine SPL and its evolved versions. Then we propose a method to reduce the test redundancy of SPL by avoiding repetition of equivalent test executions. Our experimental evaluation with two SPL systems shows that our proposed method reduces the number of test executions by 57.1% on average compared to the exhaustive execution method without sacrificing fault detection effect.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029245/Equivalent test executionsoftware product linesoftware testingtest redundancy
spellingShingle Pilsu Jung
Jaeho Kim
Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
IEEE Access
Equivalent test execution
software product line
software testing
test redundancy
title Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
title_full Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
title_fullStr Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
title_full_unstemmed Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
title_short Avoiding Equivalent Test Executions in Software Product Line Testing
title_sort avoiding equivalent test executions in software product line testing
topic Equivalent test execution
software product line
software testing
test redundancy
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11029245/
work_keys_str_mv AT pilsujung avoidingequivalenttestexecutionsinsoftwareproductlinetesting
AT jaehokim avoidingequivalenttestexecutionsinsoftwareproductlinetesting