JSART: JavaScript assertionbased regression testing

Abstract

Abstract. Web 2.0 applications rely heavily on JAVASCRIPT and client-side run-time manipulation of the DOM tree. One way to provide assurance about the cor-rectness of such highly evolving and dynamic applications is through regression testing. However, JAVASCRIPT is loosely typed, dynamic, and notoriously chal-lenging to analyze and test. We propose an automated technique for JAVASCRIPT regression testing, which is based on on-the-fly JAVASCRIPT source code instru-mentation and dynamic analysis to infer invariant assertions. These obtained as-sertions are injected back into the JAVASCRIPT code to uncover regression faults in subsequent revisions of the web application under test. Our approach is imple-mented in a tool called JSART. We present our case study conducted on nine open source web applications to evaluate the proposed approach. The results show that our approach is able to effectively generate stable assertions and de-tect JAVASCRIPT regression faults with a high degree of accuracy and minimal performance overhead