Test Case Reuse and Generation Between Similar Programs Based on Function Influence

In the process of regression testing, the reuse of test cases is a critical activity. It makes full use of the resources before updating the software to improve the efficiency of software testing. According to the existing results, most of them on regression testing focus on the test case prioritization, and a few mention the use of similarity before and after the programs upgrade changes to reuse test cases to improve the efficiency of test case generation. Aiming at the test case reuse in regression testing, this paper proposes an approach to reuse test data of similar programs before the change, and employs the fitness function designed to evolve to generate new test cases for the program after the change. It utilizes the function call graph constructed to detect similar parts of the programs. And according to the function influence, the fitness function is designed to adjust the fitness value of the individual, and excellent individuals with high fitness value are retained. Then, it reuses the test cases of the similar part before the change and the part of the test cases generated in the evolutionary process after the change, to form the test cases of the new program in the regression test. The experimental results show that, compared to the classical methods, the target path coverage rate of the proposed method is increased by 8% and 17% for small- and medium-sized, and large-sized industrial programs, respectively. © 2022 Chinese Institute of Electronics. All rights reserved.