NodeSRT: A Selective Regression Testing Tool for Node.js Application

TL;DR

NodeSRT is a novel framework for selective regression testing in Node.js applications that significantly reduces testing time by accurately identifying affected tests through static and dynamic analysis.

Contribution

This paper introduces NodeSRT, the first selective regression testing tool tailored for Node.js, addressing challenges posed by JavaScript's dynamic nature and Node's asynchronous model.

Findings

NodeSRT is 250% faster than retest-all.

It is 450% more precise than Jest OnlyChange.

Successfully applied to open-source projects Uppy and Simorgh.

Abstract

Node.js is one of the most popular frameworks for building web applications. As software systems mature, the cost of running their entire regression test suite can become significant. Selective Regression Testing (SRT) is a technique that executes only a subset of tests the regression test suite can detect software failures more efficiently. Previous SRT studies mainly focused on standard desktop applications. Node.js applications are considered hard to perform test reduction because of Node's asynchronous, event-driven programming model and because JavaScript is a dynamic programming language. In this paper, we present NodeSRT, a Selective Regression Testing framework for Node.js applications. By performing static and dynamic analysis, NodeSRT identifies the relationship between changed methods and tests, then reduces the regression test suite to only tests that are affected by the change to improve the execution time of the regression test suite. To evaluate our selection technique, we applied NodeSRT to two open-source projects: Uppy and Simorgh, then compared our approach with the retest-all strategy and current industry-standard SRT technique: Jest OnlyChange. The results demonstrate that NodeSRT correctly selects affected tests based on changes and is 250% faster, 450% more precise than the Jest OnlyChange.