Extensive experimental evaluation of cost and effectiveness properties of structural and mutation-based criteria

Abstract

It has been noted the growing interest of software developers and users for quality characteristics, which makes the testing activity essential in the process of software development. Moreover, with the growth of new development methodologies like agile processes and test driven development (TDD), it is expected that developers perform increasingly unit test. Still, the knowledge we have about how and when to use the various criteria of unit testing is limited. Although experimental studies have been done in the past, data must be collected and analyzed more extensively, including new criteria and a more complete set of subjects of study (programs) representing a universe of varied characteristics, such as size, complexity and various application domains. Thus, this research project proposes a series of experiments to evaluate characteristics of cost and effectiveness for unit testing criteria, particularly structural and mutation-based criteria. (AU)