Analysis of the reliability of a subset of change metrics for defect prediction

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe an experiment, which analyzes the relative importance and stability of change metrics for predicting defects for 3 releases of the Eclipse project. The results indicate that out of 18 change metrics 3 metrics contain most information about software defects. Moreover, those 3 metrics remain stable across 3 releases of the Eclipse project. A comparative analysis with the full model shows that the prediction accuracy is not too much affected by using a subset of 3 metrics and the recall even improves.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.8 Metrics
          Subjects: Product metrics

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.8 Metrics
          Subjects: Process metrics
      D.2.9 Management
          Subjects: Software quality assurance (SQA)

General Terms:
Experimentation, Measurement

Keywords:
defect prediction, feature selection, software metrics