An overview and case study of a statistical regression testing method for software maintenance

We propose a statistical regression testing method for evaluating the reliability of software as part of the software maintenance process. Maintenance procedures take up more than half the time of the software development process; in addition, software reliability is an important factor in determining the dependability of a product. Regression tests are performed in order to conserve or improve software reliability as part of the software maintenance process. However, existing systematic testing methods based on regression tests are not necessarily appropriate for evaluating software reliability. The statistical regression testing method is a means for compensating for the flaws of such existing methods. In this method a model of how the user makes use of the software is defined by means of a Markov chain; this is known as the usage model, and then test cases are generated at random according to a probability distribution based on this usage model. In this paper we perform experiments applying the proposed method to a small-scale client server program and demonstrate that the proposed method can be implemented. In addition, we clarify the effects and issues that may be anticipated when applying the method and establish how it may be used in practice. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 90(12): 23–34, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjb.20414