Software Testing Techniques

Software testing is a process consisting of all life cycle activities, both static and dynamic, concerned with planning, preparation and evaluation of software products and related work products to determine, that they satisfy specified requirements, to demonstrate that they are fit for purpose and to detect defects. ~ Foundation of Software Testing by Dorothy Graham, Erik van Veenendal, Isabel Evans, Rex Black.

An Introduction to Software Testing
Software testing forms the fundamental component of software quality assurance. While a software is being tested, it is laid into pieces to find out any errors in the software. When the software is tested, the test engineer aims to find errors in the system, to find an undiscovered error. To find new errors, different software testing techniques are used. The purpose of the different techniques is to uncover new errors. In this article, we will see the different types of techniques used in the software testing process.

Software Testing Techniques and Strategies

Normally software testing is carried out in all stages of the development life cycle of the software. The advantage of testing at all stages is, that it helps to find different defects in different stages of software development. This helps to minimize the cost of software, as it is easier to log the defects and fix the defects in the early stage of software development. When the entire product is ready the cost increases, as there are a number of other components, which are also dependent on the component, which has defects in it. The software testing methodologies are broadly divided into two, namely static techniques and dynamic techniques.

Static Software Testing Techniques
In this type of technique, testing of a component is carried out without execution of the software. There is static analysis of the code, which is carried out. There are different types of static techniques of software testing as well.

Review
Review is said to be one powerful static technique, which is carried out in the early stages of software testing life cycle. The reviews can either be formal or informal. Inspection is the most documented and formal review technique. However, in practice the informal review is perhaps the most commonly used technique.

In the initial stages of the development, the number of people attending the reviews, whether formal or informal are less, but they increase in the later stages of the software development. Peer Review is a review of a software product undertaken by the peers and colleagues of the author of the software component, to identify the defects in the component and also to recommend any improvements in the system if required. The types of reviews are:

• Walkthrough: The author of the document to be reviewed guides the participants through the document, along with his/her thought process to come to a common understanding as well as to gather feedback on the component document under review.
• Technical Review: It is a peer group discussion, where the focus of the discussion, is to achieve consensus on the technical approach taken, while developing the system.
• Inspection: This is also a type of peer review, where the focus is on the visual examination of various documents to detect any defects in the system. This type of review is always based on a documented procedure.

Static Analysis by Tools
Static analysis tools focus on the software code. These tools are used by software developers before as well as sometimes during component and integration testing. The tools used include

• Coding Standards: Here, there is a check conducted to verify adherence to coding standards.
• Code Metrics: The code metrics helps to measure structural attributes of the code. When the system becomes increasingly complex, it helps to decide the design alternatives, more so while redesigning portions of the code.
• Code Structure: Three main aspects of the code structure are control flow structure, data flow structure and data structure.

Dynamic Software Testing Techniques
In the dynamic technique, the code is actually tested for defects. This technique is further divided into three sub-categories, namely specification based technique, structure based technique and experience based technique. We will now see each one of them.

Specification Based Testing Techniques
The procedure used to derive and/or select test cases based on the analysis of either functional specifications or non functional specifications, of a component or system, without any reference to the internal structure of the component or system. It is also known as ‘black box testing’ or ‘input/output driven testing techniques’. They are so-called the tester has no knowledge of how the system is structured inside. The tester concentrates on what the software does and is not bothered about how it does it. Functional testing concentrates on what the system does, along with its features or functions. On the other hand, the non functional testing concentrates on how well the system does something. There are five main specification based testing techniques:

Equivalence Partitioning: The test cases are designed to execute representative inputs from an equivalence partition or equivalence classes. The test cases are designed, such that the test cases cover every partition at least once. To explain it further, an equivalence partitioning technique, the idea is to divide – a set of test conditions into sub groups or sets, which can be considered the same. If any value from the group is used in the system, the result should be the same. This helps to reduce the execution of a number of test cases, as only one condition from each partition can be tested. Example: If 1 to 100 are the valid values, then the valid partitioning is 1 to 50, 50 to 100. Therefore, for valid partitioning, 1, 50 and 100 are the values for which the system will have to be checked. But it does not end there, the system will have to be checked also for invalid partitions as well. Hence, random values like -10, 125, etc. are invalid partitions. While choosing the values for invalid partitioning, the values should be away from the valid boundaries.

Boundary Value Analysis: An input or output value that is on the edge of an equivalence partition or is at the smallest incremental distance on either side of an edge. This technique is based on testing the boundaries between the partitions for both valid boundaries and invalid boundaries. Example: If 1 to 99 are the valid inputs. Therefore, values 0 and 100 are the invalid values. Hence, the test cases should be so designed to include values 0, 1, 99 and 100, to know the working of the system.

Decision Table: This technique focuses on business logic or business rules. A decision table is also known as cause effect table. In this table there is combination of inputs with their associated outputs, which are used to design test cases. This technique works well in conjunction with equivalence partitioning. Here the first task is to identify a suitable function, which has behavioral traits, that react according to a combination of inputs. If there are a large number of conditions, then dividing them into subsets helps to come up with the accurate results. If there are two conditions, then you will have 4 combination of input sets. Likewise, for 3 conditions there are 8 combination and for 4 conditions there are 16 combination, etc.

State Transition Testing: This technique is used, where any aspect of the component or system can be described as a ‘finite state machine’. The test cases for this technique are designed to execute valid and invalid state transition. In any given state, one event can give rise to only one action, but the same event from another state may cause a different action and a different end state.

Use Case Testing: It helps to identify the test cases, which exercise the whole system on a transaction by transaction basis from the beginning to end. The test cases are designed to execute real life scenarios. They help to unravel integration defects.

Structure Based Testing Techniques
There are two purposes of structure based testing techniques, viz. Test coverage measurement and structural test case design. They are a good way to generate additional test cases, which are different from existing test cases, derived from the specification based techniques. This is also known as white box testing strategy or white box testing techniques.

• Test Coverage: The degree expressed as a percentage, to which a specified coverage item has been exercised by a test suite. The basic coverage measure is
  

  Coverage  =   
  Number of coverage items exercisedTotal number of coverage items
    *100%

  There is a danger in using the coverage measure. Contrary to the belief, 100% coverage does not mean that the code is 100% tested.

• Statement Coverage and Statement Testing:
  This is the percentage of executable statements, which have been exercised by a particular test suite. It is important to note, that a statement may be on one single line or it can be spread over several lines. At the same time, one line may contain more than one statement or a part of a statement as well and not to forget statements, which contain other statement inside them. The formula to be used for statement coverage is:

  Statement Coverage  =   
  Number of statements exercisedTotal number of statements
    *100%

• Decision Coverage and Decision Testing:
  Decision statements are statements like ‘If statements’, loop statements, Case statements, etc. where there are two or more possible outcomes from the same statement. To calculate decision coverage, the formula you will use is

  Decision Coverage  =   
  Number of decision outcomes exercisedTotal number of decision outcomes
    *100%

  Decision coverage is stronger than statement coverage, as 100% decision coverage always guarantees statement coverage, but the other way round is not true. While checking decision coverage, each decision needs to have both a true as well as a false outcome.

• Other Structure based Testing Techniques:
  Apart from the structure based techniques mentioned above, there are some other techniques as well. They include linear code sequence and jump (LCSAJ) coverage, multiple condition decision coverage (MCDC), path testing, etc.

Experience Based Testing Techniques
Although testing needs to be rigorous, systematic and thorough, there are some non systematic techniques, that are based on a person’s knowledge, experience, imagination and intuition. A bug hunter often is able to locate an elusive defect in the system. The two techniques, which fall under this category, they are:

Error Guessing
It is a test design technique, where the experience of the tester is put to test, to hunt for elusive bugs, which may be a part of the component or the system, due to errors made. This technique is often used after the formal techniques have been used to test the code and has proved to be very useful. A structured approach to be used in error guessing approach is to list the possible defects, which can be a part of the system and then test cases in an attempt to reproduce them.

Exploratory Testing Techniques
Exploratory testing is also known as ‘monkey testing’. It is a hands-on approach, where there is minimum planning of testing the component, but maximum testing takes place. The test design and test execution happen simultaneously without formally documenting the test conditions, test cases or test scripts. This approach is useful, when the project specifications are poor or when the time at hand is extremely limited.

There are different types of software testing estimation techniques. One of the techniques involves consulting people who will perform the testing activities and the people who have expertise on the tasks to be done. The software testing techniques to be used to test the project depends on a number of factors. The main factors are urgency of the project, severity of the project, resources in hand, etc. At the same time, not all techniques of software testing will be utilized in all the projects, depending on the organizational polices techniques will be decided.