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Main Authors: Wang, Han, Yu, Sijia, Chen, Chunyang, Turhan, Burak, Zhu, Xiaodong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16546
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author Wang, Han
Yu, Sijia
Chen, Chunyang
Turhan, Burak
Zhu, Xiaodong
author_facet Wang, Han
Yu, Sijia
Chen, Chunyang
Turhan, Burak
Zhu, Xiaodong
contents Deep Learning (DL) models have rapidly advanced, focusing on achieving high performance through testing model accuracy and robustness. However, it is unclear whether DL projects, as software systems, are tested thoroughly or functionally correct when there is a need to treat and test them like other software systems. Therefore, we empirically study the unit tests in open-source DL projects, analyzing 9,129 projects from GitHub. We find that: 1) unit tested DL projects have positive correlation with the open-source project metrics and have a higher acceptance rate of pull requests, 2) 68% of the sampled DL projects are not unit tested at all, 3) the layer and utilities (utils) of DL models have the most unit tests. Based on these findings and previous research outcomes, we built a mapping taxonomy between unit tests and faults in DL projects. We discuss the implications of our findings for developers and researchers and highlight the need for unit testing in open-source DL projects to ensure their reliability and stability. The study contributes to this community by raising awareness of the importance of unit testing in DL projects and encouraging further research in this area.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_16546
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Beyond Accuracy: An Empirical Study on Unit Testing in Open-source Deep Learning Projects
Wang, Han
Yu, Sijia
Chen, Chunyang
Turhan, Burak
Zhu, Xiaodong
Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Deep Learning (DL) models have rapidly advanced, focusing on achieving high performance through testing model accuracy and robustness. However, it is unclear whether DL projects, as software systems, are tested thoroughly or functionally correct when there is a need to treat and test them like other software systems. Therefore, we empirically study the unit tests in open-source DL projects, analyzing 9,129 projects from GitHub. We find that: 1) unit tested DL projects have positive correlation with the open-source project metrics and have a higher acceptance rate of pull requests, 2) 68% of the sampled DL projects are not unit tested at all, 3) the layer and utilities (utils) of DL models have the most unit tests. Based on these findings and previous research outcomes, we built a mapping taxonomy between unit tests and faults in DL projects. We discuss the implications of our findings for developers and researchers and highlight the need for unit testing in open-source DL projects to ensure their reliability and stability. The study contributes to this community by raising awareness of the importance of unit testing in DL projects and encouraging further research in this area.
title Beyond Accuracy: An Empirical Study on Unit Testing in Open-source Deep Learning Projects
topic Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16546