Dynamic Analysis can be Improved with Automatic Test Suite Refactoring

Developers design and write test suites to automatically verify that software meets its expected behaviors. For instance, in regression testing, the role of a test suite is to catch new bugs – the regressions – after changes [32]. Test suites are used in a wide range of dynamic analysis techniques: in fault localization, a test suite is executed for inferring the location of bugs by reasoning on code coverage [16]; in invariant discovery, input points in a test suite are used to infer likely program invariants [9]; in software repair, a test suite is employed to verify the behavior of synthesized patches [20]. Many dynamic analysis techniques are based on the exploitation of execution traces obtained by each test case [3], [9], [32].