Using Genetic Programming to Determine Software Quality

Software development managers use software quality prediction methods to determine to which modules expensive reliability techniques should be applied. In this paper we describe a genetic programming (GP) based system that classifies software modules as "faulty" or ’~ot faulty", allowing the targetting of modules for reliability enhancement. The paper describes the GP system, and provides a case study using software quality data from a very large industrial project. The demonstrated quality of the system is such that plans are under way to integrate it into a commercial software quality management system.