Static Test Case Prioritization Strategies for Grammar-Based Testing

Grammar-based test case generators can quickly produce large test suites that structurally and systematically cover the input space of a system under test. However, running these large test suites requires large computation resources. In this paper, we investigate whether simple test case prioritization strategies based on statically determined grammar-related properties (e.g., token-length of input, novel rule coverage, and relative frequency of rule coverage), can detect faults in the system under test faster. Our preliminary results indicate that different test execution orderings from these strategies have an effect on the fault detection rate. Their performance varies across the different test suites, but they generally perform better than a simple random ordering of test executions.