Identifying program, test, and environmental changes that affect behaviour

Abstract

Developers evolve a software system by changing the program source code, by modifying its context by updating libraries or changing its configuration, and by improving its test suite. Any of these changes can cause differences in program behaviour. In general, program paths may appear or disappear between executions of two subsequent versions of a system. Some of these behavioural differences are expected by a developer; for example, executing new program paths is often precisely what is intended when adding a new test. Other behavioural differences may or may not be expected or benign. For example, changing an XML configuration file may cause a previously-executed path to disappear, which may or may not be expected and could be problematic. Furthermore, the degree to which a behavioural change might be problematic may only become apparent over time as the new behaviour interacts with other changes.