Towards test case reuse: A study of redundancies in android platform test libraries

Abstract

Similar software systems have similar test cases. We find much redundancy even within test cases of a single system. In this paper, we describe the results of similarity analysis performed on Android platform framework project's test case libraries. The results confirm our hypothesis that reuse of test cases can boost productivity at least as much as reuse of code. We identified repetition patterns in Android platform framework test case libraries that can be represented in generic form for further reuse using variability techniques adopted from Software Product Line (SPL). By exploiting similarity among test cases, we can design generic test case libraries that are much smaller, easier to develop/evolve than existing test case libraries. In this paper, we present quantitative and qualitative findings from our study of Android platform framework test case libraries. We discuss typical patterns of repetitions and illustrate an example of how they can be treated with variability technique 'XML-based Variant Configuration Language (XVCL)'. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.