Research Focus

Regression testing ensures that changes to a software system do not introduce new bugs or reintroduce old ones. The underlying assumption of regression testing is that tests are deterministic; meaning, they consistently pass or fail if all factors that the tester seeks to control remain the same. Tests that violate this assumption are called flaky tests. In continuous integration (CI), developers integrate their code changes multiple times a day, making comprehensive automated test suites a necessity due to the frequent integrations. Assuming all tests exhibit some level of flakiness, there will inevitably be flaky failures hampering CI and causing high costs.

My research focuses on understanding flaky tests in CI development processes and on supporting developers in addressing them.

Thesis Supervision

Open Topics

Please get in touch if you are interested in guided research or if you need supervision for your master's or bachelor's thesis. Throughout the entire research period, we will meet weekly to discuss results, issues, and the next steps. You will receive feedback on your thesis before submission, giving you the opportunity to further improve your work.

When applying, please include your resume and transcript so that I can assess whether your prior knowledge and experience match the project. Please also state when you would like to start work.

I currently don't have any open topics. Please find other open topics here.

Ongoing and Assigned Topics

Finished Topics

 

Publications

Leinen, F., Perathoner, A., Pretschner, A. (2024). On the Impact of Hitting System Resource Limits on Test Flakiness. In Proceedings of the 46th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering: International Flaky Tests Workshop (FTW).

Leinen, F., Elsner, D., Pretschner, A., Stahlbauer, A., Sailer, M., & Jürgens, E. (2024). Cost of Flaky Tests in Continuous Integration: An Industrial Case Study. In Proceedings of the 17th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (accepted for publication).

Wuersching, R.*, Elsner, D.*, Leinen, F., Pretschner, A., Grueneissl, G., Neumeyr, T., Vosseler, T. (2023). Severity-Aware Prioritization of System-Level Regression Tests in Automotive Software. In Proceedings of the 16th IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation.

Teaching