Method and apparatus for prioritizing software tests

Abstract

A computer system and method is provided for prioritizing software tests. Software tests are prioritized based on coverage indicators for the software tests and an indication of impacted areas of the software. Each of the coverage indicators indicates which portions of the software are executed for a respective one of the software tests. The portions of the software include at least one of a plurality of blocks. The indication of impacted areas of the software indicates ones of the plurality of blocks that are modified or new with respect to a previous version of the software. A prioritized list of software tests is output. The prioritized list includes at least one test sequence.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application is a continuation of prior U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 133,427, filed Apr. 29, 2002, which is incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to methods and computer systems for prioritizing a plurality of software tests. More specifically, the invention relates to prioritizing software tests for a later version of previously tested software. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Software testing ensures that software has been implemented correctly and performs as intended. Testing new versions of previously tested software helps to ensure that any newly added or revised code has not adversely affected any previously working features. [0004] An important goal of software testing is to expose software defects prior to releasing the software. Defect detection and correction is more costly to fix after the software has been released. Therefore, it is desirable to detect and correct...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012] The present invention addresses some of the above shortcomings of the prior art by prioritizing software tests such that tests that cause modified or revised code to be executed are prioritized higher than other tests. The more new or revised portions of code that are executed by a test, the higher the priority of the test. As a result, most of the new or revised code can be tested by performing the first few tests. Because errors in upgraded software are more likely to occur in the modified or new portions of the code, the prioritization scheme of the present invention helps to expose defects earlier in the testing process and therefore, allows developers to address and fix the discovered defects sooner.

Problems solved by technology

Defect detection and correction is more costly to fix after the software has been released.

Full testing is intended to be exhaustive and may be very time consuming.

For example, full testing may take days or weeks to run.

Data flow analysis is difficult in a programming language such as C++ or C which contains pointers, casts, and aliasing.

Data flow analysis is not only expensive, it also does not scale to large commercial programs.

Although some studies show in certain cases that there is no reduction in fault detection, other studies show that fault detection can be severely compromised due to inaccuracies in test elimination.

Another major limitation of test elimination techniques is their inability to be effective when a procedure common to all tests is modified.

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