The impact of fault type on the relationship between code coverage and fault detection
Amanda Schwartz, Michael Hetzel · 2016
Structural coverage criteria are commonly used to determine the adequacy of a test suite. However, studies investigating structural coverage and fault-finding capabilities have mixed results. Some studies have shown generating test suites to satisfy structural coverage criteria has a positive effect on finding faults, while other studies show the opposite. These mixed results indicate there are factors not yet known that affect the ability of test suites satisfying structural coverage criteria to find faults. In order to improve the fault-finding capabilities of test suites, it is essential to understand what factors are causing this variance. Unfortunately very little work has been done to investigate the variance observed in the relationship between structural coverage criteria and fault-finding capabilities.