A general approach to Software Product Line testing

Abstract

Variability is a central concept in Software Product Lines (SPLs). It has been extensively studied how the SPL paradigm can improve both the efficiency of a company and the quality of products. Nevertheless, this brings several challenges when testing an SPL, which are mainly caused by the potentially huge amount of products that can be derived from an SPL. Different studies proposing methods for testing SPLs exist. Furthermore, there are secondary studies reviewing and mapping the literature of the existing proposals. However, there is a lack of systematic guidelines for practitioners and researchers with the different steps required to perform a testing strategy of an SPL. In this paper, we present a first preliminary version for a tutorial that summarizes the existing proposals of the SPL testing area. To the best of our knowledge, there is no similar attempt in existing literature. Our goal is to discuss this tutorial with the community and enrich it to provide a more solid version of it in the future.