Test case prioritization for regression testing based on ant colony optimization

Test case prioritization technique is an efficient method to improve regression testing activities. It orders a regression test suite to execute the test cases with higher priority earlier than those with lower priority, and the problem is how to optimize the test case ordering according to some criterion. In this paper, we have proposed an algorithm which prioritizes the test cases based on ant colony optimization (ACO), considering three factors: number of faults detected, execution time and fault severity, and these three factors are used in ant colony optimization algorithm to help to reveal more severe faults at earlier stage of the regression testing process. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated using the metric named APFD, and the results of experiment show the algorithm optimizes the test case orderings effectively.