A comparison of 10 sampling algorithms for configurable systems

Almost every software system provides configuration options to tailor the system to the target platform and application scenario. Often, this configurability renders the analysis of every individual system configuration infeasible. To address this problem, researchers have proposed a diverse set of sampling algorithms. We present a comparative study of 10 state-of-the-art sampling algorithms regarding their fault-detection capability and size of sample sets. The former is important to improve software quality and the latter to reduce the time of analysis. In a nutshell, we found that sampling algorithms with larger sample sets are able to detect higher numbers of faults, but simple algorithms with small sample sets, such as most-enabled-disabled, are the most efficient in most contexts. Furthermore, we observed that the limiting assumptions made in previous work influence the number of detected faults, the size of sample sets, and the ranking of algorithms. Finally, we have identified a number of technical challenges when trying to avoid the limiting assumptions, which questions the practicality of certain sampling algorithms.