Nienke Nijkamp · Carolin Brandt · Andy Zaidman
This paper proposes a novel naming approach for amplified test cases based on the methods where the tests provides additional coverage compared to the existing test suite.
The paper was accepted at the NIER track of SCAM’21, the IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation.
Abstract
Test amplification generates new test cases that improve the coverage of an existing test suite. To convince developers to integrate these new test cases into their test suite, it is crucial to convey the behavior and the improvement in coverage that the amplified test case provides. In this paper, we present NATIC, an approach to generate names for amplified test cases based on the methods they additionally cover, compared to the existing test suite. In a survey among 16 participants with a background in Computer Science, we show that the test names generated by NATIC are valued similarly to names written by experts. According to the participants, the names generated by NATIC outperform expert-written names with respect to informing about coverage improvement, but lack in conveying a test’s behavior. Finally, we discuss how a restriction to two mentioned methods per name would improve the understandability of the test names generated by NATIC.