Application of Mahalanobis-Taguchi Method and 0-1 Programming Method to Cost-Effective Regression Testing

To enhance the cost effectiveness of regression testing, this paper proposes a method for prioritizing test cases. In general, a test case can be evaluated from various different points of view, therefore whether it is worth it to re-run should be discussed using multi criteria. This paper shows that the Mahalanobis-Taguchi (MT) method is a useful way to successfully integrate different evaluations of a test case. Moreover, this paper proposes to use the 0-1 programming method together with the MT method in order to take into account not only the priority of a test case but also its cost to run. The empirical study with 300 test cases for an industrial software system shows that the combination of the MT method and the 0-1 programming method is more cost-effective than other conventional methods.