Video

Google Tech Talks June 23, 2007 ABSTRACT 2007 Google Seattle Conference on Scalability: Scalable Test Selection Using Source Code Deltas Speaker: Ryan Gerard, Symantec Corporation As the number of automated regression tests increase, the ability to run all of them in a reasonable amount of time becomes more and more difficult, and simply doesn't scale. Since we are looking for regressions, it is useful to hone in on the parts of the code that have changed from the last run to help select a small subset of tests that are likely to find the regression. In this way we are only running the tests that need to be run as your system gets larger and the number of possible tests scales outward. We have devised a method to select a subset of tests from an existing test set for scalable regression testing based on source code changes, or deltas. The selection algorithm is a static data mining technique that establishes the relationship between source code deltas and test case execution results. Test selection is then based on the established correlation. In this talk, we will discuss the benefits and also the pitfalls involved in having such an infrastructure. Finally, we will talk about how best to add it to a nightly or continuous test automation infrastructure. Ryan Gerard is currently an SQA Engineer at Symantec. He has a BS in Computer Science and Engineering from UCLA, and is currently pursuing his MS in Information Security. Ryan’s particular specialties are in web technologies and security testing, although his interests span kernel-level technologies to process improvements to data analysis.