Software Testing Techniques

Flashcards covering key vocabulary and concepts in software testing methodologies.

Software Testing

Techniques to improve software quality by finding errors and providing confidence in the dependability of the software product.

Good Test

A test is successful if the program fails.

Dependable Software Product

A software product is dependable if it is consistent with its specification.

Fault Detection

It’s cheaper to find and fix faults at the unit level.

Early Testing

It’s good to do as much testing as early as you can -- you can’t test quality in, you have to build it in

Exhaustive Testing

The concept that fully testing each program to ensure that the program works correctly is not practically achievable.

Application Under Test (AUT)

Software that is being evaluated.

Test Input

Data provided to AUT.

Expected Output

Answer we expect to see from a test.

Test Case

Test inputs + expected output.

Test Suite

Collection of test cases.

Test Requirements

Those aspects of the program that must be covered according to the considered criterion.

Validation

Are we building the right product? To what degree the software fulfills its (informal) requirements?

Verification

Are we building the product right? To which degree is the implementation consistent with its (formal or semi-formal) specification?

Failure

Observable incorrect behavior of a program; related to the behavior of the program, rather than its code.

Fault (bug)

Related to the code; necessary (not sufficient!) condition for the occurrence of a failure.

Error

Cause of a fault; usually a human error (conceptual, typo, etc.).

Coincidental Correctness

A program can be coincidentally correct if it executes a fault but does not fail.

Test Selection Criterion (C)

Rule for selecting the subset of inputs or requirements to use in a test suite.

Black-box Testing

Based on a specification.

White-box Testing

Based on the code.

Oracle

Provides the expected (correct) results of a test and is used to assess whether a test is successful or not.

Test adequacy criteria

the adequacy score of a test suite is the percentage of “coverable” items (as defined by the criteria) that are covered by the test suite.

Functional Quality

How well the behavior conforms to design/specifications?

Structural Quality

How well is the functionality implemented (i.e., architecture/design, code)?

Unit Testing

The act of testing the smallest possible unit of code, usually a single class in OOP.

Ambiguity in Requirements

A major source of headache and cost overruns.

JUnit

A unit testing framework for Java.