Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2021, 14, 95-109 https://www.scirp.org/journal/jsea ISSN Online: 1945-3124 ISSN Print: 1945-3116 DOI: 10.4236/jsea.2021.144007 Apr. 22, 2021 95 Journal of Software Engineering and Applications A Comparative Evaluation of Test Coverage Techniques Effectiveness Xaveria Youh Djam *1 , Nachamada Vachaku Blamah 2 , Modesta Ero Ezema 3 1 Department of Computer Science, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon 2 Department of Computer Science, University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria 3 Computer Science Department Faculty of Physical Sciences, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nsukka, Nigeria Abstract Software systems have become complex and challenging to develop and maintain because of the large size of test cases with increased scalability is- sues. Test case prioritization methods have been successfully utilized in test case management. However, the prohibitively exorbitant cost of large test cases is now the mainstream in the software industry. The growth of agile test-driven development has increased the expectations for software quality. Yet, our knowledge of when to use various path testing criteria for cost- effectiveness is inadequate due to the inherent complexity in software testing. Existing researches attempted to address the issue without effectively tackling the scalability of large test suites to reduce time in regression testing. In order to provide a more accurate way of fault detection in software projects, we in- troduced novel coverage criteria, called Incremental Cluster-based test case Prioritization (ICP), and investigated its potentials by making a comparative evaluation with three un-clustered traditional coverage-based criteria: Prime-Path Coverage (PPC), Edge-Pair Coverage (EPC) and Edge Coverage (EC) based on mutation analysis. By clustering test suites, based on their dy- namic run-time behavior, the number of pair-wise comparisons is reduced significantly. To compare, we analyzed 20 functions from 25 C programs, in- strumented faults into the programs, and used the Mull mutation tool to generate mutants and perform a statistical analysis of the results. The experi- mental results show that ICP can lead to cost-effective improvements in fault detection. Keywords Software Testing, Fault Detection, Mutation Analysis, Test Case Prioritization, Control Flow Coverage How to cite this paper: Djam, X.Y., Bla- mah, N.V. and Ezema, M.E. (2021) A Comparative Evaluation of Test Coverage Techniques Effectiveness. Journal of Soft- ware Engineering and Applications, 14, 95-109. https://doi.org/10.4236/jsea.2021.144007 Received: December 1, 2020 Accepted: April 19, 2021 Published: April 22, 2021 Copyright © 2021 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access