Software testing

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide1

Objectives

To discuss the distinctions between

validation testing and defect testing
To describe the principles of system and
component testing
To describe strategies for generating system
test cases
To understand the essential characteristics of
tool used for test automation

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide2

Topics covered

System testing
Component testing
Test case design
Test automation

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide3

The testing process

Component testing

Testing of individual program components;

Usually the responsibility of the component developer
(except sometimes for critical systems);
Tests are derived from the developers experience.

System testing

Testing of groups of components integrated to create a

system or sub-system;
The responsibility of an independent testing team;
Tests are based on a system specification.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide4

Com
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Ind
Testing phases

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide5

Defect testing

The goal of defect testing is to discover

defects in programs
A successful defect test is a test which
causes a program to behave in an
anomalous way
Tests show the presence not the absence of
defects

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide6

Testing process goals

Validation testing

To demonstrate to the developer and the system

customer that the software meets its requirements;
A successful test shows that the system operates as
intended.

Defect testing

To discover faults or defects in the software where its

behaviour is incorrect or not in conformance with its
specification;
A successful test is a test that makes the system perform
incorrectly and so exposes a defect in the system.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide7

The software testing process

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide8

Testing policies

Only exhaustive testing can show a program is free

from defects. However, exhaustive testing is
impossible,
Testing policies define the approach to be used in
selecting system tests:

All functions accessed through menus should be tested;

Combinations of functions accessed through the same
menu should be tested;
Where user input is required, all functions must be tested
with correct and incorrect input.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide9

System testing

Involves integrating components to create a

system or sub-system.
May involve testing an increment to be
delivered to the customer.
Two phases:

Integration testing - the test team have access

to the system source code. The system is
tested as components are integrated.
Release testing - the test team test the
complete system to be delivered as a black-box.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide10

Integration testing

Involves building a system from its components

and testing it for problems that arise from
component interactions.
Top-down integration

Bottom-up integration

Develop the skeleton of the system and populate it

with components.
Integrate infrastructure components then add
functional components.

To simplify error localisation, systems should be

incrementally integrated.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide11

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide12

Testing approaches

Architectural validation

System demonstration

Top-down integration testing allows a limited

demonstration at an early stage in the development.

Test implementation

Top-down integration testing is better at discovering

errors in the system architecture.

Often easier with bottom-up integration testing.

Test observation

Problems with both approaches. Extra code may be

required to observe tests.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide13

Release testing

The process of testing a release of a system

that will be distributed to customers.
Primary goal is to increase the suppliers
confidence that the system meets its
requirements.
Release testing is usually black-box or
functional testing

Based on the system specification only;

Testers do not have knowledge of the system
implementation.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide14

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide15

Testing guidelines

Testing guidelines are hints for the testing team

to help them choose tests that will reveal
defects in the system

Choose inputs that force the system to generate all

error messages;
Design inputs that cause buffers to overflow;
Repeat the same input or input series several
times;
Force invalid outputs to be generated;
Force computation results to be too large or too
small.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide16

Testing scenario

A student in Scotland is studying American History and has been asked to write a paper
on Frontier mentality in the American West from 1840 to 1880. To do this, she needs to
find sources from a range of libraries. She logs on to the LIBSYS system and uses the
search facility to discover if she can access original documents from that time. She
discovers sources in various US university libraries and downloads copies of some of
these. However, for one document, she needs to have confirmation from her university
that she is a genuine student and that use is for non-commercial purposes. The student
then uses the facility in LIBSYS that can request such permission and registers her
request. If granted, the document will be downloaded to the registered librarys server
and printed for her. She receives a message from LIBSYS telling her that she will receive
an e-mail message when the printed document is available for collection.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide17

System tests

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide18

Use cases

Use cases can be a basis for deriving the

tests for a system. They help identify
operations to be tested and help design the
required test cases.
From an associated sequence diagram, the
inputs and outputs to be created for the tests
can be identified.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide19

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide20

Performance testing

Part of release testing may involve testing

the emergent properties of a system, such
as performance and reliability.
Performance tests usually involve planning a
series of tests where the load is steadily
increased until the system performance
becomes unacceptable.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide21

Stress testing

Exercises the system beyond its maximum design

load. Stressing the system often causes defects to
come to light.
Stressing the system test failure behaviour..
Systems should not fail catastrophically. Stress
testing checks for unacceptable loss of service or
data.
Stress testing is particularly relevant to distributed
systems that can exhibit severe degradation as a
network becomes overloaded.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide22

Component testing

Component or unit testing is the process of

testing individual components in isolation.
It is a defect testing process.
Components may be:

Individual functions or methods within an object;

Object classes with several attributes and
methods;
Composite components with defined interfaces
used to access their functionality.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide23

Object class testing

Complete test coverage of a class involves

Testing all operations associated with an object;

Setting and interrogating all object attributes;
Exercising the object in all possible states.

Inheritance makes it more difficult to design

object class tests as the information to be
tested is not localised.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide24

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide25

Weather station testing

Need to define test cases for reportWeather,

calibrate, test, startup and shutdown.
Using a state model, identify sequences of
state transitions to be tested and the event
sequences to cause these transitions
For example:

Waiting -> Calibrating -> Testing -> Transmitting

-> Waiting

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide26

Interface testing

Objectives are to detect faults due to

interface errors or invalid assumptions about
interfaces.
Particularly important for object-oriented
development as objects are defined by their
interfaces.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide27

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Interface testing

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide28

Interface types

Parameter interfaces

Shared memory interfaces

Block of memory is shared between procedures or

functions.

Procedural interfaces

Data passed from one procedure to another.

Sub-system encapsulates a set of procedures to be

called by other sub-systems.

Message passing interfaces

Sub-systems request services from other sub-system.s

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide29

Interface errors

Interface misuse

Interface misunderstanding

A calling component calls another component and makes

an error in its use of its interface e.g. parameters in the
wrong order.
A calling component embeds assumptions about the
behaviour of the called component which are incorrect.

Timing errors

The called and the calling component operate at different

speeds and out-of-date information is accessed.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide30

Interface testing guidelines

Design tests so that parameters to a called

procedure are at the extreme ends of their ranges.
Always test pointer parameters with null pointers.
Design tests which cause the component to fail.
Use stress testing in message passing systems.
In shared memory systems, vary the order in which
components are activated.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide31

Test case design

Involves designing the test cases (inputs and

outputs) used to test the system.
The goal of test case design is to create a
set of tests that are effective in validation
and defect testing.
Design approaches:

Requirements-based testing;
Partition testing;
Structural testing.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide32

Requirements based testing

A general principle of requirements

engineering is that requirements should be
testable.
Requirements-based testing is a validation
testing technique where you consider each
requirement and derive a set of tests for that
requirement.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide33

LIBSYS requirements

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide34

LIBSYS tests

Initiate user search for searches for items that are known to
be present and known not to be present, where the set of
databases includes 1 database.
Initiate user searches for items that are known to be present
and known not to be present, where the set of databases
includes 2 databases
Initiate user searches for items that are known to be present
and known not to be present where the set of databases
includes more than 2 databases.
Select one database from the set of databases and initiate
user searches for items that are known to be present and
known not to be present.
Select more than one database from the set of databases
and initiate searches for items that are known to be present
and known not to be present.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide35

Partition testing

Input data and output results often fall into

different classes where all members of a
class are related.
Each of these classes is an equivalence
partition or domain where the program
behaves in an equivalent way for each class
member.
Test cases should be chosen from each
partition.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide36

Equivalence partitioning

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide37

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide38

Search routine specification

procedure Search (Key : ELEM ; T: SEQ of ELEM;
Found : in out BOOLEAN; L: in out ELEM_INDEX) ;
Pre-condition
-- the sequence has at least one element
TFIRST <= TLAST
Post-condition
-- the element is found and is referenced by L
( Found and T (L) = Key)
or
-- the element is not in the array
( not Found and
not (exists i, TFIRST >= i <= TLAST, T (i) = Key ))

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide39

Search routine - input partitions

Inputs which conform to the pre-conditions.

Inputs where a pre-condition does not hold.
Inputs where the key element is a member of
the array.
Inputs where the key element is not a
member of the array.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide40

Testing guidelines (sequences)

Test software with sequences which have

only a single value.
Use sequences of different sizes in different
tests.
Derive tests so that the first, middle and last
elements of the sequence are accessed.
Test with sequences of zero length.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide41

Search routine - input partitions

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide42

Structural testing

Sometime called white-box testing.

Derivation of test cases according to
program structure. Knowledge of the
program is used to identify additional test
cases.
Objective is to exercise all program
statements (not all path combinations).

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide43

T
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Structural testing

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide44

Binary search - equiv. partitions

Pre-conditions satisfied, key element in array.

Pre-conditions satisfied, key element not in
array.
Pre-conditions unsatisfied, key element in array.
Pre-conditions unsatisfied, key element not in array.
Input array has a single value.
Input array has an even number of values.
Input array has an odd number of values.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide45

Equ
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Binary search equiv. partitions

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide46

Binary search - test cases

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide47

Path testing

The objective of path testing is to ensure that

the set of test cases is such that each path
through the program is executed at least
once.
The starting point for path testing is a
program flow graph that shows nodes
representing program decisions and arcs
representing the flow of control.
Statements with conditions are therefore
nodes in the flow graph.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide48

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide49

Independent paths

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 5,
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 2, 11, 13, 5,
Test cases should be derived so that all of
these paths are executed
A dynamic program analyser may be used to
check that paths have been executed

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide50

Test automation

Testing is an expensive process phase. Testing

workbenches provide a range of tools to reduce the
time required and total testing costs.
Systems such as Junit support the automatic
execution of tests.
Most testing workbenches are open systems
because testing needs are organisation-specific.
They are sometimes difficult to integrate with closed
design and analysis workbenches.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide51

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IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide52

Testing workbench adaptation

Scripts may be developed for user interface

simulators and patterns for test data
generators.
Test outputs may have to be prepared
manually for comparison.
Special-purpose file comparators may be
developed.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide53

Key points

Testing can show the presence of faults in a system;

it cannot prove there are no remaining faults.
Component developers are responsible for
component testing; system testing is the
responsibility of a separate team.
Integration testing is testing increments of the
system; release testing involves testing a system to
be released to a customer.
Use experience and guidelines to design test cases
in defect testing.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide54

Key points

Interface testing is designed to discover defects in

the interfaces of composite components.
Equivalence partitioning is a way of discovering test
cases - all cases in a partition should behave in the
same way.
Structural analysis relies on analysing a program
and deriving tests from this analysis.
Test automation reduces testing costs by supporting
the test process with a range of software tools.

IanSommerville2004

SoftwareEngineering,7thedition.Chapter23Slide55