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Software testing
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Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about

the quality of the product or service under test.[1] Software testing also provides an objective,
independent view of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of
software implementation. Test techniques include, but are not limited to, the process of executing
a program or application with the intent of finding software bugs (errors or other defects).

Software testing can also be stated as the process of validating and verifying that a software
program/application/product:

1. meets the business and technical requirements that guided its design and development;
2. works as expected; and
3. can be implemented with the same characteristics.

Software testing, depending on the testing method employed, can be implemented at any time in
the development process. However, most of the test effort occurs after the requirements have
been defined and the coding process has been completed. As such, the methodology of the test is
governed by the software development methodology adopted.

Different software development models will focus the test effort at different points in the
development process. Newer development models, such as Agile, often employ test driven
development and place an increased portion of the testing in the hands of the developer, before it
reaches a formal team of testers. In a more traditional model, most of the test execution occurs
after the requirements have been defined and the coding process has been completed.

[edit] Overview
Testing can never completely identify all the defects within software. Instead, it furnishes a
criticism or comparison that compares the state and behavior of the product against oracles—
principles or mechanisms by which someone might recognize a problem. These oracles may
include (but are not limited to) specifications, contracts,[2] comparable products, past versions of
the same product, inferences about intended or expected purpose, user or customer expectations,
relevant standards, applicable laws, or other criteria.
Every software product has a target audience. For example, the audience for video game
software is completely different from banking software. Therefore, when an organization
develops or otherwise invests in a software product, it can assess whether the software product
will be acceptable to its end users, its target audience, its purchasers, and other stakeholders.
Software testing is the process of attempting to make this assessment.

A study conducted by NIST in 2002 reports that software bugs cost the U.S. economy $59.5
billion annually. More than a third of this cost could be avoided if better software testing was
performed.[3]

[edit] History
The separation of debugging from testing was initially introduced by Glenford J. Myers in 1979.
[4]
Although his attention was on breakage testing ("a successful test is one that finds a bug"[4][5])
it illustrated the desire of the software engineering community to separate fundamental
development activities, such as debugging, from that of verification. Dave Gelperin and William
C. Hetzel classified in 1988 the phases and goals in software testing in the following stages:[6]

 Until 1956 - Debugging oriented[7]

 1957–1978 - Demonstration oriented[8]
 1979–1982 - Destruction oriented[9]
 1983–1987 - Evaluation oriented[10]
 1988–2000 - Prevention oriented[11]

[edit] Software testing topics

[edit] Scope

A primary purpose of testing is to detect software failures so that defects may be discovered and
corrected. This is a non-trivial pursuit. Testing cannot establish that a product functions properly
under all conditions but can only establish that it does not function properly under specific
conditions.[12] The scope of software testing often includes examination of code as well as
execution of that code in various environments and conditions as well as examining the aspects
of code: does it do what it is supposed to do and do what it needs to do. In the current culture of
software development, a testing organization may be separate from the development team. There
are various roles for testing team members. Information derived from software testing may be
used to correct the process by which software is developed.[13]

[edit] Functional vs non-functional testing

Functional testing refers to activities that verify a specific action or function of the code. These
are usually found in the code requirements documentation, although some development
methodologies work from use cases or user stories. Functional tests tend to answer the question
of "can the user do this" or "does this particular feature work".
Non-functional testing refers to aspects of the software that may not be related to a specific
function or user action, such as scalability or other performance, behavior under certain
constraints, or security. Non-functional requirements tend to be those that reflect the quality of
the product, particularly in the context of the suitability perspective of its users.

[edit] Defects and failures

Not all software defects are caused by coding errors. One common source of expensive defects is
caused by requirement gaps, e.g., unrecognized requirements, that result in errors of omission by
the program designer.[14] A common source of requirements gaps is non-functional requirements
such as testability, scalability, maintainability, usability, performance, and security.

Software faults occur through the following processes. A programmer makes an error (mistake),
which results in a defect (fault, bug) in the software source code. If this defect is executed, in
certain situations the system will produce wrong results, causing a failure.[15] Not all defects will
necessarily result in failures. For example, defects in dead code will never result in failures. A
defect can turn into a failure when the environment is changed. Examples of these changes in
environment include the software being run on a new hardware platform, alterations in source
data or interacting with different software.[15] A single defect may result in a wide range of failure
symptoms.

[edit] Finding faults early

It is commonly believed that the earlier a defect is found the cheaper it is to fix it.[16] The
following table shows the cost of fixing the defect depending on the stage it was found.[17][not in
citation given]
For example, if a problem in the requirements is found only post-release, then it would
cost 10–100 times more to fix than if it had already been found by the requirements review.

Time detected
Cost to fix a defect
Requirements Architecture Construction System test Post-release

Requirements 1× 3× 5–10× 10× 10–100×

Time introduced Architecture - 1× 10× 15× 25–100×

Construction - - 1× 10× 10–25×

[edit] Compatibility

A common cause of software failure (real or perceived) is a lack of compatibility with other
application software, operating systems (or operating system versions, old or new), or target
environments that differ greatly from the original (such as a terminal or GUI application intended
to be run on the desktop now being required to become a web application, which must render in
a web browser). For example, in the case of a lack of backward compatibility, this can occur
because the programmers develop and test software only on the latest version of the target
environment, which not all users may be running. This results in the unintended consequence
that the latest work may not function on earlier versions of the target environment, or on older
hardware that earlier versions of the target environment was capable of using. Sometimes such
issues can be fixed by proactively abstracting operating system functionality into a separate
program module or library.

[edit] Input combinations and preconditions

A very fundamental problem with software testing is that testing under all combinations of
inputs and preconditions (initial state) is not feasible, even with a simple product.[12][18] This
means that the number of defects in a software product can be very large and defects that occur
infrequently are difficult to find in testing. More significantly, non-functional dimensions of
quality (how it is supposed to be versus what it is supposed to do)—usability, scalability,
performance, compatibility, reliability—can be highly subjective; something that constitutes
sufficient value to one person may be intolerable to another.

[edit] Static vs. dynamic testing

There are many approaches to software testing. Reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections are
considered as static testing, whereas actually executing programmed code with a given set of test
cases is referred to as dynamic testing. Static testing can be (and unfortunately in practice often
is) omitted. Dynamic testing takes place when the program itself is used for the first time (which
is generally considered the beginning of the testing stage). Dynamic testing may begin before the
program is 100% complete in order to test particular sections of code (modules or discrete
functions). Typical techniques for this are either using stubs/drivers or execution from a
debugger environment. For example, spreadsheet programs are, by their very nature, tested to a
large extent interactively ("on the fly"), with results displayed immediately after each calculation
or text manipulation.

[edit] Software verification and validation

Software testing is used in association with verification and validation:[19]

 Verification: Have we built the software right? (i.e., does it match the specification).
 Validation: Have we built the right software? (i.e., is this what the customer wants).

The terms verification and validation are commonly used interchangeably in the industry; it is
also common to see these two terms incorrectly defined. According to the IEEE Standard
Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology:

Verification is the process of evaluating a system or component to determine whether the

products of a given development phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of that phase.

Validation is the process of evaluating a system or component during or at the end of the
development process to determine whether it satisfies specified requirements.
[edit] The software testing team

Software testing can be done by software testers. Until the 1980s the term "software tester" was
used generally, but later it was also seen as a separate profession. Regarding the periods and the
different goals in software testing,[20] different roles have been established: manager, test lead,
test designer, tester, automation developer, and test administrator.

[edit] Software quality assurance (SQA)

Though controversial, software testing is a part of the software quality assurance (SQA) process.
[12]
In SQA, software process specialists and auditors are concerned for the software development
process rather than just the artifacts such as documentation, code and systems. They examine and
change the software engineering process itself to reduce the amount of faults that end up in the
delivered software: the so-called defect rate.

What constitutes an "acceptable defect rate" depends on the nature of the software; A flight
simulator video game would have much higher defect tolerance than software for an actual
airplane.

Although there are close links with SQA, testing departments often exist independently, and
there may be no SQA function in some companies.

Software testing is a task intended to detect defects in software by contrasting a computer

program's expected results with its actual results for a given set of inputs. By contrast, QA
(quality assurance) is the implementation of policies and procedures intended to prevent defects
from occurring in the first place.

[edit] Testing methods

[edit] The box approach

Software testing methods are traditionally divided into white- and black-box testing. These two
approaches are used to describe the point of view that a test engineer takes when designing test
cases.

[edit] White box testing

Main article: White box testing

White box testing is when the tester has access to the internal data structures and algorithms
including the code that implement these.

Types of white box testing

The following types of white box testing exist:

  API testing (application programming interface) - testing of the application using public
and private APIs
 Code coverage - creating tests to satisfy some criteria of code coverage (e.g., the test
designer can create tests to cause all statements in the program to be executed at least
once)
 Fault injection methods - improving the coverage of a test by introducing faults to test
code paths
 Mutation testing methods
 Static testing - White box testing includes all static testing

Test coverage
White box testing methods can also be used to evaluate the completeness of a test suite that
was created with black box testing methods. This allows the software team to examine parts of
a system that are rarely tested and ensures that the most important function points have been
tested.[21]

Two common forms of code coverage are:

 Function coverage, which reports on functions executed

 Statement coverage, which reports on the number of lines executed to complete the
test

They both return a code coverage metric, measured as a percentage.

[edit] Black box testing

Main article: Black box testing

Black box testing treats the software as a "black box"—without any knowledge of internal
implementation. Black box testing methods include: equivalence partitioning, boundary value
analysis, all-pairs testing, fuzz testing, model-based testing, exploratory testing and specification-
based testing.

Specification-based testing: Specification-based testing aims to test the functionality of

software according to the applicable requirements. [22] Thus, the tester inputs data into, and only
sees the output from, the test object. This level of testing usually requires thorough test cases to
be provided to the tester, who then can simply verify that for a given input, the output value (or
behavior), either "is" or "is not" the same as the expected value specified in the test case.

Specification-based testing is necessary, but it is insufficient to guard against certain risks. [23]

Advantages and disadvantages: The black box tester has no "bonds" with the code, and a
tester's perception is very simple: a code must have bugs. Using the principle, "Ask and you shall
receive," black box testers find bugs where programmers do not. On the other hand, black box
testing has been said to be "like a walk in a dark labyrinth without a flashlight," because the
 tester doesn't know how the software being tested was actually constructed. As a result, there
are situations when (1) a tester writes many test cases to check something that could have been
tested by only one test case, and/or (2) some parts of the back-end are not tested at all.

Therefore, black box testing has the advantage of "an unaffiliated opinion", on the one hand, and
the disadvantage of "blind exploring", on the other. [24]

[edit] Grey box testing

Grey box testing (American spelling: gray box testing) involves having knowledge of internal
data structures and algorithms for purposes of designing the test cases, but testing at the user, or
black-box level. Manipulating input data and formatting output do not qualify as grey box,
because the input and output are clearly outside of the "black-box" that we are calling the system
under test. This distinction is particularly important when conducting integration testing between
two modules of code written by two different developers, where only the interfaces are exposed
for test. However, modifying a data repository does qualify as grey box, as the user would not
normally be able to change the data outside of the system under test. Grey box testing may also
include reverse engineering to determine, for instance, boundary values or error messages.

[edit] Testing levels

Tests are frequently grouped by where they are added in the software development process, or by
the level of specificity of the test. The main levels during the development process as defined by
the SWEBOK guide are unit-, integration-, and system testing that are distinguished by the test
target without impliying a specific process model.[25] Other test levels are classified by the testing
objective.[26]

[edit] Test target

[edit] Unit testing

Main article: Unit testing

Unit testing refers to tests that verify the functionality of a specific section of code, usually at
the function level. In an object-oriented environment, this is usually at the class level, and the
minimal unit tests include the constructors and destructors.[27]

These type of tests are usually written by developers as they work on code (white-box style), to
ensure that the specific function is working as expected. One function might have multiple tests,
to catch corner cases or other branches in the code. Unit testing alone cannot verify the
functionality of a piece of software, but rather is used to assure that the building blocks the
software uses work independently of each other.

Unit testing is also called component testing.

[edit] Integration testing

Main article: Integration testing

Integration testing is any type of software testing that seeks to verify the interfaces between
components against a software design. Software components may be integrated in an iterative
way or all together ("big bang"). Normally the former is considered a better practice since it
allows interface issues to be localised more quickly and fixed.

Integration testing works to expose defects in the interfaces and interaction between integrated
components (modules). Progressively larger groups of tested software components
corresponding to elements of the architectural design are integrated and tested until the software
works as a system.[28]

[edit] System testing

Main article: System testing

System testing tests a completely integrated system to verify that it meets its requirements.[29]

[edit] System integration testing

Main article: System integration testing

System integration testing verifies that a system is integrated to any external or third-party
systems defined in the system requirements.[citation needed]

[edit] Objectives of testing

[edit] Regression testing

Main article: Regression testing

Regression testing focuses on finding defects after a major code change has occurred.
Specifically, it seeks to uncover software regressions, or old bugs that have come back. Such
regressions occur whenever software functionality that was previously working correctly stops
working as intended. Typically, regressions occur as an unintended consequence of program
changes, when the newly developed part of the software collides with the previously existing
code. Common methods of regression testing include re-running previously run tests and
checking whether previously fixed faults have re-emerged. The depth of testing depends on the
phase in the release process and the risk of the added features. They can either be complete, for
changes added late in the release or deemed to be risky, to very shallow, consisting of positive
tests on each feature, if the changes are early in the release or deemed to be of low risk.

[edit] Acceptance testing

Main article: Acceptance testing

Acceptance testing can mean one of two things:

1. A smoke test is used as an acceptance test prior to introducing a new build to the main testing
process, i.e. before integration or regression.
2. Acceptance testing is performed by the customer, often in their lab environment on their own
hardware, is known as user acceptance testing (UAT). Acceptance testing may be performed as
part of the hand-off process between any two phases of development. [citation needed]

[edit] Alpha testing

Alpha testing is simulated or actual operational testing by potential users/customers or an

independent test team at the developers' site. Alpha testing is often employed for off-the-shelf
software as a form of internal acceptance testing, before the software goes to beta testing.[30]

[edit] Beta testing

Beta testing comes after alpha testing and can be considered a form of external user acceptance
testing. Versions of the software, known as beta versions, are released to a limited audience
outside of the programming team. The software is released to groups of people so that further
testing can ensure the product has few faults or bugs. Sometimes, beta versions are made
available to the open public to increase the feedback field to a maximal number of future users.
[citation needed]

[edit] Non-functional testing

Special methods exist to test non-functional aspects of software. In contrast to functional testing,
which establishes the correct operation of the software (correct in that it matches the expected
behavior defined in the design requirements), non-functional testing verifies that the software
functions properly even when it receives invalid or unexpected inputs. Software fault injection,
in the form of fuzzing, is an example of non-functional testing. Non-functional testing, especially
for software, is designed to establish whether the device under test can tolerate invalid or
unexpected inputs, thereby establishing the robustness of input validation routines as well as
error-handling routines. Various commercial non-functional testing tools are linked from the
software fault injection page; there are also numerous open-source and free software tools
available that perform non-functional testing.

[edit] Software performance testing and load testing

Performance testing is executed to determine how fast a system or sub-system performs under a
particular workload. It can also serve to validate and verify other quality attributes of the system,
such as scalability, reliability and resource usage. Load testing is primarily concerned with
testing that can continue to operate under a specific load, whether that be large quantities of data
or a large number of users. This is generally referred to as software scalability. The related load
testing activity of when performed as a non-functional activity is often referred to as endurance
testing.

Volume testing is a way to test functionality. Stress testing is a way to test reliability. Load
testing is a way to test performance. There is little agreement on what the specific goals of load
testing are. The terms load testing, performance testing, reliability testing, and volume testing,
are often used interchangeably.

[edit] Stability testing

Stability testing checks to see if the software can continuously function well in or above an
acceptable period. This activity of non-functional software testing is often referred to as load (or
endurance) testing.

[edit] Usability testing

Usability testing is needed to check if the user interface is easy to use and understand.It approach
towards the use of the application.

[edit] Security testing

Security testing is essential for software that processes confidential data to prevent system
intrusion by hackers.

[edit] Internationalization and localization

The general ability of software to be internationalized and localized can be automatically tested
without actual translation, by using pseudolocalization. It will verify that the application still
works, even after it has been translated into a new language or adapted for a new culture (such as
different currencies or time zones).[31]

Actual translation to human languages must be tested, too. Possible localization failures include:

 Software is often localized by translating a list of strings out of context, and the translator may
choose the wrong translation for an ambiguous source string.
 Technical terminology may become inconsistent if the project is translated by several people
without proper coordination or if the translator is imprudent.
 Literal word-for-word translations may sound inappropriate, artificial or too technical in the
target language.
 Untranslated messages in the original language may be left hard coded in the source code.
 Some messages may be created automatically in run time and the resulting string may be
ungrammatical, functionally incorrect, misleading or confusing.
 Software may use a keyboard shortcut which has no function on the source language's keyboard
layout, but is used for typing characters in the layout of the target language.
 Software may lack support for the character encoding of the target language.
  Fonts and font sizes which are appropriate in the source language, may be inappropriate in the
target language; for example, CJK characters may become unreadable if the font is too small.
 A string in the target language may be longer than the software can handle. This may make the
string partly invisible to the user or cause the software to crash or malfunction.
 Software may lack proper support for reading or writing bi-directional text.
 Software may display images with text that wasn't localized.
 Localized operating systems may have differently-named system configuration files and
environment variables and different formats for date and currency.

To avoid these and other localization problems, a tester who knows the target language must run
the program with all the possible use cases for translation to see if the messages are readable,
translated correctly in context and don't cause failures.

[edit] Destructive testing

Main article: Destructive testing

Destructive testing attempts to cause the software or a sub-system to fail, in order to test its
robustness.

[edit] The testing process

[edit] Traditional CMMI or waterfall development model

A common practice of software testing is that testing is performed by an independent group of

testers after the functionality is developed, before it is shipped to the customer.[32] This practice
often results in the testing phase being used as a project buffer to compensate for project delays,
thereby compromising the time devoted to testing.[33]

Another practice is to start software testing at the same moment the project starts and it is a
continuous process until the project finishes.[34]

Further information: Capability Maturity Model Integration and Waterfall model

[edit] Agile or Extreme development model

In counterpoint, some emerging software disciplines such as extreme programming and the agile
software development movement, adhere to a "test-driven software development" model. In this
process, unit tests are written first, by the software engineers (often with pair programming in the
extreme programming methodology). Of course these tests fail initially; as they are expected to.
Then as code is written it passes incrementally larger portions of the test suites. The test suites
are continuously updated as new failure conditions and corner cases are discovered, and they are
integrated with any regression tests that are developed. Unit tests are maintained along with the
rest of the software source code and generally integrated into the build process (with inherently
interactive tests being relegated to a partially manual build acceptance process). The ultimate
goal of this test process is to achieve continuous deployment where software updates can be
published to the public frequently. [35] [36]

[edit] A sample testing cycle

Although variations exist between organizations, there is a typical cycle for testing.[37] The
sample below is common among organizations employing the Waterfall development model.

 Requirements analysis: Testing should begin in the requirements phase of the software
development life cycle. During the design phase, testers work with developers in determining
what aspects of a design are testable and with what parameters those tests work.
 Test planning: Test strategy, test plan, testbed creation. Since many activities will be carried out
during testing, a plan is needed.
 Test development: Test procedures, test scenarios, test cases, test datasets, test scripts to use
in testing software.
 Test execution: Testers execute the software based on the plans and test documents then
report any errors found to the development team.
 Test reporting: Once testing is completed, testers generate metrics and make final reports on
their test effort and whether or not the software tested is ready for release.
 Test result analysis: Or Defect Analysis, is done by the development team usually along with the
client, in order to decide what defects should be treated, fixed, rejected (i.e. found software
working properly) or deferred to be dealt with later.
 Defect Retesting: Once a defect has been dealt with by the development team, it is retested by
the testing team. AKA Resolution testing.
 Regression testing: It is common to have a small test program built of a subset of tests, for each
integration of new, modified, or fixed software, in order to ensure that the latest delivery has
not ruined anything, and that the software product as a whole is still working correctly.
 Test Closure: Once the test meets the exit criteria, the activities such as capturing the key
outputs, lessons learned, results, logs, documents related to the project are archived and used
as a reference for future projects.

[edit] Automated testing

Main article: Test automation

Many programming groups are relying more and more on automated testing, especially groups
that use test-driven development. There are many frameworks to write tests in, and continuous
integration software will run tests automatically every time code is checked into a version control
system.

While automation cannot reproduce everything that a human can do (and all the ways they think
of doing it), it can be very useful for regression testing. However, it does require a well-
developed test suite of testing scripts in order to be truly useful.

[edit] Testing tools

Program testing and fault detection can be aided significantly by testing tools and debuggers.
Testing/debug tools include features such as:

 Program monitors, permitting full or partial monitoring of program code including:

o Instruction set simulator, permitting complete instruction level monitoring and trace
facilities
o Program animation, permitting step-by-step execution and conditional breakpoint at
source level or in machine code
o Code coverage reports
 Formatted dump or symbolic debugging, tools allowing inspection of program variables on error
or at chosen points
 Automated functional GUI testing tools are used to repeat system-level tests through the GUI
 Benchmarks, allowing run-time performance comparisons to be made
 Performance analysis (or profiling tools) that can help to highlight hot spots and resource usage

Some of these features may be incorporated into an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

 A regression testing technique is to have a standard set of tests, which cover existing
functionality that result in persistent tabular data, and to compare pre-change data to post-
change data, where there should not be differences, using a tool like diffkit. Differences
detected indicate unexpected functionality changes or "regression".

[edit] Measurement in software testing

Usually, quality is constrained to such topics as correctness, completeness, security,[citation needed]

but can also include more technical requirements as described under the ISO standard ISO/IEC
9126, such as capability, reliability, efficiency, portability, maintainability, compatibility, and
usability.

There are a number of frequently-used software measures, often called metrics, which are used to
assist in determining the state of the software or the adequacy of the testing.