Prioritizing Test Cases For Regression Testing Gregg Rothermel, Member, IEEE Computer Society,

AbstractÐTest case prioritization techniques schedule test cases for execution in an order that attempts to increase their effectiveness at meeting some performance goal. Various goals are possible; one involves rate of fault detectionÐa measure of how quickly faults are detected within the testing process. An improved rate of fault detection during testing can provide faster feedback on the system under test and let software engineers begin correcting faults earlier than might otherwise be possible. One application of prioritization techniques involves regression testingÐthe retesting of software following modifications; in this context, prioritization techniques can take advantage of information gathered about the previous execution of test cases to obtain test case orderings. In this paper, we describe several techniques for using test execution information to prioritize test cases for regression testing, including: 1) techniques that order test cases based on their total coverage of code components, 2) techniques that order test cases based o