What Makes Software Bugs Escape Testing? Evidence from a Large-Scale Empirical Study
Fuente:
arXiv
Enregistré dans:
| Auteurs principaux: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
|
| Sujets: | |
| Accès en ligne: | |
| Tags: |
Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
|
| _version_ | 1866917447227932672 |
|---|---|
| author | Cotroneo, Domenico De Rosa, Giuseppe Improta, Cristina Varriale, Benedetta Gaia |
| author_facet | Cotroneo, Domenico De Rosa, Giuseppe Improta, Cristina Varriale, Benedetta Gaia |
| contents | Understanding how software defects manifest and evolve in production environments is critical for improving reliability. While previous research has largely focused on pre-release defects, the nature of residual faults, i.e., those escaping testing and surfacing post-release, remains poorly understood. This paper presents a large-scale characterization of pre- and post-release defects across C/C++ and Java systems, encompassing over 14k defects mined from open-source projects. We employ a broad suite of software metrics to capture diverse code attributes such as complexity, size, structure, and development history.
Results show that post-release defects are concentrated in older, frequently modified, and high-churn components, typically requiring longer and more complex fixes than pre-release ones. These findings highlight that residual defects arise more from evolutionary and process dynamics than code structure alone, suggesting that reliability engineering should prioritize targeted testing in mature and complex code regions. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_26672 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | What Makes Software Bugs Escape Testing? Evidence from a Large-Scale Empirical Study Cotroneo, Domenico De Rosa, Giuseppe Improta, Cristina Varriale, Benedetta Gaia Software Engineering Understanding how software defects manifest and evolve in production environments is critical for improving reliability. While previous research has largely focused on pre-release defects, the nature of residual faults, i.e., those escaping testing and surfacing post-release, remains poorly understood. This paper presents a large-scale characterization of pre- and post-release defects across C/C++ and Java systems, encompassing over 14k defects mined from open-source projects. We employ a broad suite of software metrics to capture diverse code attributes such as complexity, size, structure, and development history. Results show that post-release defects are concentrated in older, frequently modified, and high-churn components, typically requiring longer and more complex fixes than pre-release ones. These findings highlight that residual defects arise more from evolutionary and process dynamics than code structure alone, suggesting that reliability engineering should prioritize targeted testing in mature and complex code regions. |
| title | What Makes Software Bugs Escape Testing? Evidence from a Large-Scale Empirical Study |
| topic | Software Engineering |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26672 |