Continuous selective testing

Abstract

A manual and explicit activity, the frequent selection and execution of tests requires considerable discipline. Our approach automatically derives a subset of tests based on actual modifications to the code base at hand, then continuously executes them transparently in the background, and so supports developers in instantly assessing the effect of their coding activities with respect to the overall set of unit tests to be passed. We apply techniques of selective regression testing, mainly relying on dynamic analysis. By taking advantage of the internal program representation available in IDEs, we do not need to rely on expensive comparisons of different program versions to detect modified code entities. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.