The Hybrid Jaro-Winkler and Manhattan Distance using Dissimilarity Measure for Test Case Prioritization Approach

Abstract

Software product line (SPL) is a concept that has revolutionized the software development industry. It refers to a set of related software products that are developed from a common set of core assets but can be customized to meet specific customer requirements. Integrating SPL techniques into test case prioritization (TCP) can greatly enhance its effectiveness. By considering variability across different products within an SPL, it becomes possible to prioritize test cases based on their relevance to specific product configurations. However, the concept itself still has certain issues, such as in finding the highest rate of early failure detection. Various solutions have been proposed to mitigate this problem, among them is to improve the calculation of string distance using hybrid technique to achieve a high degree for similarity. Dissimilarity-based Technique (DBP) is the basis for our ranking method. The objective is to identify further weaknesses in the product lines as well as the differences between the experiment and real-world applications. Our focus is to enhance hybrid techniques that produce the highest rate of early failure detection. In this paper, early fault detection is selected as the performance goal. In order to choose the optimal methods for DBP for TCP, a comparison between several string distance measures was conducted. This study proposed hybrid techniques that combined Jaro-Winkler and Manhattan string distance namely New Enhanced Hybrid Technique 1 (NEHT1), New Enhanced Hybrid Technique 2 (NEHT2) and New Enhanced Hybrid Technique 3 (NEHT3). The case study was generated using the PLEDGE tool based on a Feature Model (FM). Six test cases were used in the experiment. Result shows the effectiveness of the combination where it achieved higher degree of similarity for T1 vs. T4, T2 vs. T3, T2 vs. T6, and T3 vs. T6, as well as perfect degree of similarity for NEHT1 (100.00%). The result proves that the combination of both techniques improve SPL testing effectiveness compared to existing techniques.