Improving the Comprehensibility of Generated Test Suites Using Test Case Clustering

Abstract

Software testing is critical for ensuring the quality of software systems. Manually writing test cases is time-intensive and costly, which has led to the development of automated test case generation techniques. However, the adoption of these techniques is limited due to the difficulties in comprehending the generated test cases. In this paper, we propose an approach to improve the comprehension of automatically generated test suites by clustering the test cases within the test suite. Our approach clusters the test cases based on the test objectives (e.g., lines and branches) they cover, grouping together those with similar attributes to enhance developer understanding. To evaluate our approach, we conducted an empirical study with 52 participants performing three software maintenance tasks based on related work. The results show developers agree with the proposed clusters and that clustered test suites facilitate faster software maintenance tasks.