Proactive Cognitive Analysis for Inferring Test Case Dependencies

A computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having a computer readable program stored therein, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a data processing system, causes the data processing system to:

• analyze a test case corpus to identify a plurality of first relationships between elements of test cases in the test case corpus;
• generate a test case relationship model based on the identified plurality of first relationships;
• receive a proposed requirements change to change one or more requirements of the software product;
• search the test case relationship model to identify test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change;
• identify a subset of test cases in the test case corpus affected by the proposed requirements change based on the identified test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change at least by generating a ranked listing that ranks each test case having at least one test case relationship corresponding to the proposed requirements change, relative to other test cases having at least one test case relationship, based on whether the at least one test case relationship associated with the test case is a direct relationship or an indirect relationship, whether the test case has multiple test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change, and whether the at least one test case relationship comprises both a direct relationship and an indirect relationship, and selecting test cases from the ranked listing to be the subset of test cases based on relative rankings of the test cases in the ranked listing;
• and
• generate an output specifying the identified subset of test cases.

An apparatus comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
• analyze a test case corpus to identify a plurality of first relationships between elements of test cases in the test case corpus;
• generate a test case relationship model based on the identified plurality of first relationships;
• receive a proposed requirements change to change one or more requirements of the software product;
• search the test case relationship model to identify test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change;
• identify a subset of test cases in the test case corpus affected by the proposed requirements change based on the identified test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change at least by generating a ranked listing that ranks each test case having at least one test case relationship corresponding to the proposed requirements change, relative to other test cases having at least one test case relationship, based on whether the at least one test case relationship associated with the test case is a direct relationship or an indirect relationship, whether the test case has multiple test case relationships corresponding to the proposed requirements change, and whether the at least one test case relationship comprises both a direct relationship and an indirect relationship, and selecting test cases from the ranked listing to be the subset of test cases based on relative rankings of the test cases in the ranked listing;
• and
• generate an output specifying the identified subset of test cases.