On practical adequate test suites for integrated test case prioritization and fault localization

Abstract

An effective integration between testing and debugging should address how well testing and fault localization can work together productively. In this paper, we report an empirical study on the effectiveness of using adequate test suites for fault localization. We also investigate the integration of test case prioritization and statistical fault localization with a postmortem analysis approach. Our results on 16 test case prioritization techniques and four statistical fault localization techniques show that, although much advancement has been made in the last decade, test adequacy criteria are still insufficient in supporting effective fault localization. We also find that the use of branch-adequate test suites is more likely than statement-adequate test suites in the effective support of statistical fault localization. © 2011 IEEE.