Last updated on Monday, October 06, 2025
@inproceedings{Laghari2018ICSEPOSTER,
author = {Gulsher Laghari and Serge Demeyer},
booktitle = {Companion Proceedings {ICSE 2018} (The 40th
International Conference on Software Engineering)},
publisher = {IEEE},
title = {Poster: Unit Tests and Component Tests do Make a
Difference on Fault Localisation Effectiveness},
year = {2018},
abstract = {Agile testers distinguish between unit tests and
component tests as a way to automate the bulk of the
developer tests. Research on fault localisation
largely ignores this distinction, evaluating the
effectiveness of these techniques irrespective of
whether the fault is exposed by unit tests --where
the search space to locate the fault is constrained
to the unit under test-- or by component tests
--where the search space expands to all objects
involved in the test. Based on a comparison of
sixteen spectrum based fault localisation techniques,
we show that there is indeed a big difference in
performance when facing unit tests and component
tests. Consequently, researchers should distinguish
between easy and difficult to locate faults when
evaluating new fault localisation techniques.},
annote = {workshoppaper},
}