Generalizing the Split Factor of the Minimizing Delta Debugging Algorithm

One of the first attempts at the automation of test case reduction was the minimizing delta debugging algorithm, widely known as ddmin. Despite its age, it is still an unavoidable cornerstone of this field of research. One criticism against ddmin is that it can take too long to reach the granularity...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE access Vol. 8; pp. 219837 - 219846
Main Author: Kiss, Akos
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Piscataway IEEE 2020
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects:
Algorithms
Automation
Complexity theory
Debugging
Delta debugging
granularity
Partitioning algorithms
Reduction
Software
split factor
test case reduction
Testing
ISSN:2169-3536, 2169-3536
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:One of the first attempts at the automation of test case reduction was the minimizing delta debugging algorithm, widely known as ddmin. Despite its age, it is still an unavoidable cornerstone of this field of research. One criticism against ddmin is that it can take too long to reach the granularity where it can perform actual reduction. Therefore, in this paper, ddmin is generalized with respect to the granularity by introducing a new split factor parameter, leading to the formalization of a parametric algorithm variant. The complexity analysis of this parametric variant reveals that the theoretical worst and best-case behavior of ddmin can be improved. Moreover, the results of experiments with the generalized algorithm show that the reduction can be sped up significantly by choosing the right split factor: up to 84% of the test steps can be eliminated in practice.
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ISSN:2169-3536
2169-3536
DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3043027