Software testing

Software testing is an investigation conducted to provide stakeholders with information about the quality of
the software product or service under test.[1] Software testing can also provide an objective, independent view
of the software to allow the business to appreciate and understand the risks of software implementation. Test
techniques include the process of executing a program or application with the intent of finding failures,[2]:31
and verifying that the software product is fit for use.

Software testing involves the execution of a software component or system component to evaluate one or more
properties of interest. In general, these properties indicate the extent to which the component or system under
test:

meets the requirements that guided its design and development,

responds correctly to all kinds of inputs,
performs its functions within an acceptable time,
is sufficiently usable,
can be installed and run in its intended environments
achieves the general result its stakeholders desire.

As the number of possible tests for even simple software components is practically infinite, all software testing
uses some strategy to select tests that are feasible for the available time and resources. As a result, software
testing typically (but not exclusively) attempts to execute a program or application with the intent of finding
failures[2]:31 due to software faults.[2]:31 The job of testing is an iterative process as when one fault is fixed, it
can illuminate other failures due to deeper faults, or can even create new ones.

Software testing can provide objective, independent information about the quality of software and risk of its
failure to users or sponsors.[1]

Software testing can be conducted as soon as executable software (even if partially complete) exists. The
overall approach to software development often determines when and how testing is conducted. For example,
in a phased process, most testing occurs after system requirements have been defined and then implemented in
testable programs. In contrast, under an agile approach, requirements, programming, and testing are often done
concurrently.

Contents
Overview
Faults and failures
Input combinations and preconditions
Economics
Roles
History
Testing approach
Static, dynamic, and passive testing
Exploratory approach
 The "box" approach
White-box testing
Black-box testing
Visual testing
Grey-box testing
Testing levels
Unit testing
Integration testing
System testing
Acceptance testing
Testing types, techniques and tactics
Installation testing
Compatibility testing
Smoke and sanity testing
Regression testing
Acceptance testing
Alpha testing
Beta testing
Functional vs non-functional testing
Continuous testing
Destructive testing
Software performance testing
Usability testing
Accessibility testing
Security testing
Internationalization and localization
Development testing
A/B testing
Concurrent testing
Conformance testing or type testing
Output comparison testing
Property testing
VCR testing
Testing process
Traditional waterfall development model
Agile or XP development model
A sample testing cycle
Automated testing
Testing tools
Measurement in software testing
Hierarchy of testing difficulty
Testing artifacts
Certifications
Controversy
 Related processes
Software verification and validation
Software quality assurance
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Overview
Although software testing can determine the correctness of software under the assumption of some specific
hypotheses (see the hierarchy of testing difficulty below), testing cannot identify all the failures within the
software.[3] Instead, it furnishes a criticism or comparison that compares the state and behavior of the product
against test oracles — principles or mechanisms by which someone might recognize a problem. These oracles
may include (but are not limited to) specifications, contracts,[4] 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.

A primary purpose of testing is to detect software failures so that defects may be discovered and corrected.
Testing cannot establish that a product functions properly under all conditions, but only that it does not
function properly under specific conditions.[5] The scope of software testing may include the examination of
code as well as the 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.[6]:41–43

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 assists in making this assessment.

Faults and failures

Software faults occur through the following process: A programmer makes an error (mistake), which results in
a fault (defect, bug) in the software source code. If this fault is executed, in certain situations the system will
produce wrong results, causing a failure.[2]:31

Not all faults will necessarily result in failures. For example, faults in the dead code will never result in failures.
A fault that did not reveal failures may result in a failure when the environment is changed. Examples of these
changes in environment include the software being run on a new computer hardware platform, alterations in
source data, or interacting with different software.[7] A single fault may result in a wide range of failure
symptoms.

Not all software faults are caused by coding errors. One common source of expensive defects is requirement
gaps, i.e., unrecognized requirements that result in errors of omission by the program designer.[6]:426
Requirement gaps can often be non-functional requirements such as testability, scalability, maintainability,
performance, and security.
Input combinations and preconditions

A 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.[5]:17–18[8] This means that the number of faults in a
software product can be very large and defects that occur infrequently are difficult to find in testing and
debugging. More significantly, non-functional dimensions of quality (how it is supposed to be versus what it is
supposed to do) — usability, scalability, performance, compatibility, and reliability — can be highly
subjective; something that constitutes sufficient value to one person may be intolerable to another.

Software developers can't test everything, but they can use combinatorial test design to identify the minimum
number of tests needed to get the coverage they want. Combinatorial test design enables users to get greater
test coverage with fewer tests. Whether they are looking for speed or test depth, they can use combinatorial test
design methods to build structured variation into their test cases.[9]

Economics

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.[10]

Outsourcing software testing because of costs is very common, with China, the Philippines, and India being
preferred destinations.[11]

Roles

Software testing can be done by dedicated 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,[12] different roles have been established, such as test manager, test lead, test analyst, test
designer, tester, automation developer, and test administrator. Software testing can also be performed by non-
dedicated software testers.[13]

History
Glenford J. Myers initially introduced the separation of debugging from testing in 1979.[14] Although his
attention was on breakage testing ("A successful test case is one that detects an as-yet undiscovered
error."[14]:16 ), it illustrated the desire of the software engineering community to separate fundamental
development activities, such as debugging, from that of verification.

Testing approach

Static, dynamic, and passive testing

There are many approaches available in software testing. Reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections are referred to
as static testing, whereas executing programmed code with a given set of test cases is referred to as dynamic
testing.[15][16]

Static testing is often implicit, like proofreading, plus when programming tools/text editors check source code
structure or compilers (pre-compilers) check syntax and data flow as static program analysis. Dynamic testing
takes place when the program itself is run. Dynamic testing may begin before the program is 100% complete
in order to test particular sections of code and are applied to discrete functions or modules.[15][16] Typical
techniques for these are either using stubs/drivers or execution from a debugger environment.[16]

Static testing involves verification, whereas dynamic testing also involves validation.[16]

Passive testing means verifying the system behavior without any interaction with the software product.
Contrary to active testing, testers do not provide any test data but look at system logs and traces. They mine for
patterns and specific behavior in order to make some kind of decisions.[17] This is related to offline runtime
verification and log analysis.

Exploratory approach

Exploratory testing is an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test
design, and test execution. Cem Kaner, who coined the term in 1984,[18]:2 defines exploratory testing as "a
style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to
continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and
test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project."[18]:36

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 the tester takes when designing test cases. A hybrid approach called
grey-box testing may also be applied to software testing methodology.[19][20] With the concept of grey-box
testing—which develops tests from specific design elements—gaining prominence, this "arbitrary distinction"
between black- and white-box testing has faded somewhat.[21]

White-box testing

White-box testing (also known as clear box testing, glass box testing,
transparent box testing, and structural testing) verifies the internal
structures or workings of a program, as opposed to the functionality
exposed to the end-user. In white-box testing, an internal perspective
of the system (the source code), as well as programming skills, are
used to design test cases. The tester chooses inputs to exercise paths
White Box Testing Diagram
through the code and determine the appropriate outputs.[19][20] This is
analogous to testing nodes in a circuit, e.g., in-circuit testing (ICT).

While white-box testing can be applied at the unit, integration, and system levels of the software testing
process, it is usually done at the unit level.[21] It can test paths within a unit, paths between units during
integration, and between subsystems during a system–level test. Though this method of test design can
uncover many errors or problems, it might not detect unimplemented parts of the specification or missing
requirements.

Techniques used in white-box testing include:[20][22]

API testing – testing of the application using public and private APIs (application programming
interfaces)
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 – intentionally introducing faults to gauge the efficacy of testing
strategies
Mutation testing methods
Static testing methods

Code coverage tools can evaluate the completeness of a test suite that was created with any method, including
black-box testing. 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.[23] Code coverage as a software metric can be
reported as a percentage for:[19][23][24]

Function coverage, which reports on functions executed

Statement coverage, which reports on the number of lines executed to complete the test
Decision coverage, which reports on whether both the True and the False branch of a
given test has been executed

100% statement coverage ensures that all code paths or branches (in terms of control flow) are executed at
least once. This is helpful in ensuring correct functionality, but not sufficient since the same code may process
different inputs correctly or incorrectly.[25] Pseudo-tested functions and methods are those that are covered but
not specified (it is possible to remove their body without breaking any test case).[26]

Black-box testing

Black-box testing (also known as functional testing) treats the software as

a "black box," examining functionality without any knowledge of
internal implementation, without seeing the source code. The testers are Black box diagram
only aware of what the software is supposed to do, not how it does it. [27]
Black-box testing methods include: equivalence partitioning, boundary
value analysis, all-pairs testing, state transition tables, decision table testing, fuzz testing, model-based testing,
use case testing, exploratory testing, and specification-based testing.[19][20][24]

Specification-based testing aims to test the functionality of software according to the applicable
requirements.[28] 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. Test cases are built around specifications and requirements, i.e.,
what the application is supposed to do. It uses external descriptions of the software, including specifications,
requirements, and designs to derive test cases. These tests can be functional or non-functional, though usually
functional.

Specification-based testing may be necessary to assure correct functionality, but it is insufficient to guard
against complex or high-risk situations.[29]

One advantage of the black box technique is that no programming knowledge is required. Whatever biases the
programmers may have had, the tester likely has a different set and may emphasize different areas of
functionality. On the other hand, black-box testing has been said to be "like a walk in a dark labyrinth without
a flashlight."[30] Because they do not examine the source code, there are situations when a tester writes many
test cases to check something that could have been tested by only one test case or leaves some parts of the
program untested.

This method of test can be applied to all levels of software testing: unit, integration, system and acceptance.[21]
It typically comprises most if not all testing at higher levels, but can also dominate unit testing as well.

Component interface testing

Component interface testing is a variation of black-box testing, with the focus on the data values beyond just
the related actions of a subsystem component.[31] The practice of component interface testing can be used to
check the handling of data passed between various units, or subsystem components, beyond full integration
testing between those units.[32][33] The data being passed can be considered as "message packets" and the
range or data types can be checked, for data generated from one unit, and tested for validity before being
passed into another unit. One option for interface testing is to keep a separate log file of data items being
passed, often with a timestamp logged to allow analysis of thousands of cases of data passed between units for
days or weeks. Tests can include checking the handling of some extreme data values while other interface
variables are passed as normal values.[32] Unusual data values in an interface can help explain unexpected
performance in the next unit.

Visual testing

The aim of visual testing is to provide developers with the ability to examine what was happening at the point
of software failure by presenting the data in such a way that the developer can easily find the information she
or he requires, and the information is expressed clearly.[34][35]

At the core of visual testing is the idea that showing someone a problem (or a test failure), rather than just
describing it, greatly increases clarity and understanding. Visual testing, therefore, requires the recording of the
entire test process – capturing everything that occurs on the test system in video format. Output videos are
supplemented by real-time tester input via picture-in-a-picture webcam and audio commentary from
microphones.

Visual testing provides a number of advantages. The quality of communication is increased drastically because
testers can show the problem (and the events leading up to it) to the developer as opposed to just describing it
and the need to replicate test failures will cease to exist in many cases. The developer will have all the
evidence she or he requires of a test failure and can instead focus on the cause of the fault and how it should be
fixed.

Ad hoc testing and exploratory testing are important methodologies for checking software integrity, because
they require less preparation time to implement, while the important bugs can be found quickly.[36] In ad hoc
testing, where testing takes place in an improvised, impromptu way, the ability of the tester(s) to base testing
off documented methods and then improvise variations of those tests can result in more rigorous examination
of defect fixes.[36] However, unless strict documentation of the procedures are maintained, one of the limits of
ad hoc testing is lack of repeatability.[36]

Grey-box testing

Grey-box testing (American spelling: gray-box testing) involves having knowledge of internal data structures
and algorithms for purposes of designing tests while executing those tests at the user, or black-box level. The
tester will often have access to both "the source code and the executable binary."[37] Grey-box testing may
also include reverse engineering (using dynamic code analysis) to determine, for instance, boundary values or
error messages.[37] Manipulating input data and formatting output do not qualify as grey-box, as 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 the test.

By knowing the underlying concepts of how the software works, the tester makes better-informed testing
choices while testing the software from outside. Typically, a grey-box tester will be permitted to set up an
isolated testing environment with activities such as seeding a database. The tester can observe the state of the
product being tested after performing certain actions such as executing SQL statements against the database
and then executing queries to ensure that the expected changes have been reflected. Grey-box testing
implements intelligent test scenarios, based on limited information. This will particularly apply to data type
handling, exception handling, and so on.[38]

Testing levels
Broadly speaking, there are at least three levels of testing: unit testing, integration testing, and system
testing.[39][40][41][42] However, a fourth level, acceptance testing, may be included by developers. This may
be in the form of operational acceptance testing or be simple end-user (beta) testing, testing to ensure the
software meets functional expectations.[43][44][45] Based on the ISTQB Certified Test Foundation Level
syllabus, test levels includes those four levels, and the fourth level is named acceptance testing.[46] Tests are
frequently grouped into one of these levels by where they are added in the software development process, or
by the level of specificity of the test.

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.[47]

These types 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 ensure that the building blocks of the software work independently from each other.

Unit testing is a software development process that involves a synchronized application of a broad spectrum of
defect prevention and detection strategies in order to reduce software development risks, time, and costs. It is
performed by the software developer or engineer during the construction phase of the software development
life cycle. Unit testing aims to eliminate construction errors before code is promoted to additional testing; this
strategy is intended to increase the quality of the resulting software as well as the efficiency of the overall
development process.

Depending on the organization's expectations for software development, unit testing might include static code
analysis, data-flow analysis, metrics analysis, peer code reviews, code coverage analysis and other software
testing practices.

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 located 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.[48]

Integration tests usually involve a lot of code, and produce traces that are larger than those produced by unit
tests. This has an impact on the ease of localizing the fault when an integration test fails. To overcome this
issue, it has been proposed to automatically cut the large tests in smaller pieces to improve fault
localization.[49]

System testing

System testing tests a completely integrated system to verify that the system meets its requirements.[2]:74 For
example, a system test might involve testing a login interface, then creating and editing an entry, plus sending
or printing results, followed by summary processing or deletion (or archiving) of entries, then logoff.

Acceptance testing

Commonly this level of Acceptance testing include the following four types:[46]

User acceptance testing

Operational acceptance testing
Contractual and regulatory acceptance testing
Alpha and beta testing

User acceptance testing and Alpha and beta testing are described in the next #Testing types section.

Operational acceptance is used to conduct operational readiness (pre-release) of a product, service or system as
part of a quality management system. OAT is a common type of non-functional software testing, used mainly
in software development and software maintenance projects. This type of testing focuses on the operational
readiness of the system to be supported, or to become part of the production environment. Hence, it is also
known as operational readiness testing (ORT) or Operations readiness and assurance (OR&A) testing.
Functional testing within OAT is limited to those tests that are required to verify the non-functional aspects of
the system.

In addition, the software testing should ensure that the portability of the system, as well as working as
expected, does not also damage or partially corrupt its operating environment or cause other processes within
that environment to become inoperative.[50]

Contractual acceptance testing is performed based on the contract's acceptance criteria defined during the
agreement of the contract, while regulatory acceptance testing is performed based on the relevant regulations to
the software product. Both of these two testings can be performed by users or independent testers. Regulation
acceptance testing sometimes involves the regulatory agencies auditing the test results.[46]

Testing types, techniques and tactics

Different labels and ways of grouping testing may be testing types, software testing tactics or techniques.[51]

Installation testing

Most software systems have installation procedures that are needed before they can be used for their main
purpose. Testing these procedures to achieve an installed software system that may be used is known as
installation testing.

Compatibility testing
A common cause of software failure (real or perceived) is a lack of its
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
TestingCup - Polish Championship in
results in the unintended consequence that the latest work may not Software Testing, Katowice, May
function on earlier versions of the target environment, or on older 2016
hardware that earlier versions of the target environment were capable
of using. Sometimes such issues can be fixed by proactively
abstracting operating system functionality into a separate program module or library.

Smoke and sanity testing

Sanity testing determines whether it is reasonable to proceed with further testing.

Smoke testing consists of minimal attempts to operate the software, designed to determine whether there are
any basic problems that will prevent it from working at all. Such tests can be used as build verification test.

Regression testing

Regression testing focuses on finding defects after a major code change has occurred. Specifically, it seeks to
uncover software regressions, as degraded or lost features, including 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. Regression testing is typically the
largest test effort in commercial software development,[52] due to checking numerous details in prior software
features, and even new software can be developed while using some old test cases to test parts of the new
design to ensure prior functionality is still supported.

Common methods of regression testing include re-running previous sets of test cases 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, or be very shallow, consisting of positive tests on each feature, if the changes are early in the release
or deemed to be of low risk. In regression testing, it is important to have strong assertions on the existing
behavior. For this, it is possible to generate and add new assertions in existing test cases,[53] this is known as
automatic test amplification.[54]

Acceptance testing

Acceptance testing can mean one of two things:

1. A smoke test is used as a build acceptance test prior to further testing, e.g., before integration or
regression.
2. Acceptance testing 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.
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.[55]

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 known as beta testers. The software is released to groups of people so that further testing
can ensure the product has few faults or bugs. Beta versions can be made available to the open public to
increase the feedback field to a maximal number of future users and to deliver value earlier, for an extended or
even indefinite period of time (perpetual beta).[56]

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. Testing will
determine the breaking point, the point at which extremes of scalability or performance leads to unstable
execution. 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.

Continuous testing

Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to
obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate.[57][58]
Continuous testing includes the validation of both functional requirements and non-functional requirements;
the scope of testing extends from validating bottom-up requirements or user stories to assessing the system
requirements associated with overarching business goals.[59][60]

Destructive testing

Destructive testing attempts to cause the software or a sub-system to fail. It verifies that the software functions
properly even when it receives invalid or unexpected inputs, thereby establishing the robustness of input
validation and error-management routines. Software fault injection, in the form of fuzzing, is an example of
failure testing. 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 destructive testing.

Software performance testing

Performance testing is generally executed to determine how a system or sub-system performs in terms of
responsiveness and stability under a particular workload. It can also serve to investigate, measure, validate or
verify other quality attributes of the system, such as scalability, reliability and resource usage.

Load testing is primarily concerned with testing that the system 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 software functions even when certain components (for
example a file or database) increase radically in size. Stress testing is a way to test reliability under unexpected
or rare workloads. Stability testing (often referred to as load or endurance testing) checks to see if the software
can continuously function well in or above an acceptable period.

There is little agreement on what the specific goals of performance testing are. The terms load testing,
performance testing, scalability testing, and volume testing, are often used interchangeably.

Real-time software systems have strict timing constraints. To test if timing constraints are met, real-time testing
is used.

Usability testing

Usability testing is to check if the user interface is easy to use and understand. It is concerned mainly with the
use of the application. This is not a kind of testing that can be automated; actual human users are needed, being
monitored by skilled UI designers.

Accessibility testing

Accessibility testing may include compliance with standards such as:

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Security testing

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

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines this as a "type of testing conducted to
evaluate the degree to which a test item, and associated data and information, are protected so that
unauthorised persons or systems cannot use, read or modify them, and authorized persons or systems are not
denied access to them."[61]

Internationalization and localization

Testing for internationalization and localization validates that the software can be used with different languages
and geographic regions. The process of pseudolocalization is used to test the ability of an application to be
translated to another language, and make it easier to identify when the localization process may introduce new
bugs into the product.
Globalization testing verifies that the software is adapted for a new culture (such as different currencies or time
zones).[62]

Actual translation to human languages must be tested, too. Possible localization and globalization 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 at run time and the resulting string may be
ungrammatical, functionally incorrect, misleading or confusing.
Software may use a keyboard shortcut that 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 that 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 was not localized.
Localized operating systems may have differently named system configuration files and
environment variables and different formats for date and currency.

Development testing

Development Testing is a software development process that involves the synchronized application of a broad
spectrum of defect prevention and detection strategies in order to reduce software development risks, time, and
costs. It is performed by the software developer or engineer during the construction phase of the software
development lifecycle. Development Testing aims to eliminate construction errors before code is promoted to
other testing; this strategy is intended to increase the quality of the resulting software as well as the efficiency
of the overall development process.

Depending on the organization's expectations for software development, Development Testing might include
static code analysis, data flow analysis, metrics analysis, peer code reviews, unit testing, code coverage
analysis, traceability, and other software testing practices.

A/B testing

A/B testing is a method of running a controlled experiment to determine if a proposed change is more effective
than the current approach. Customers are routed to either a current version (control) of a feature, or to a
modified version (treatment) and data is collected to determine which version is better at achieving the desired
outcome.

Concurrent testing
Concurrent or concurrency testing assesses the behaviour and performance of software and systems that use
concurrent computing, generally under normal usage conditions. Typical problems this type of testing will
expose are deadlocks, race conditions and problems with shared memory/resource handling.

Conformance testing or type testing

In software testing, conformance testing verifies that a product performs according to its specified standards.
Compilers, for instance, are extensively tested to determine whether they meet the recognized standard for that
language.

Output comparison testing

Creating a display expected output, whether as data comparison of text or screenshots of the UI,[5]:195 is
sometimes called snapshot testing or Golden Master Testing unlike many other forms of testing, this cannot
detect failures automatically and instead requires that a human evaluate the output for inconsistencies.

Property testing

Property testing is a testing technique where, instead of asserting that specific inputs produce specific expected
outputs, the practitioner randomly generates many inputs, runs the program on all of them, and asserts the truth
of some "property" that should be true for every pair of input and output. For example, every input to a sort
function should have the same length as its output. Every output from a sort function should be a
monotonically increasing list.

Property testing libraries allow the user to control the strategy by which random inputs are constructed, to
ensure coverage of degenerate cases, or inputs featuring specific patterns that are needed to fully exercise
aspects of the implementation under test.

Property testing is also sometimes known as "generative testing" or "QuickCheck testing" since it was
introduced and popularized by the Haskell library "QuickCheck (https://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCh
eck)." [63]

VCR testing

VCR testing, also known as "playback testing" or "record/replay" testing, is a testing technique for increasing
the reliability and speed of regression tests that involve a component that is slow or unreliable to communicate
with, often a third-party API outside of the tester's control. It involves making a recording ("cassette") of the
system's interactions with the external component, and then replaying the recorded interactions as a substitute
for communicating with the external system on subsequent runs of the test.

The technique was popularized in web development by the Ruby library vcr (https://github.com/vcr/vcr).

Testing process

Traditional waterfall development model

A common practice in waterfall development is that testing is performed by an independent group of testers.
This can happen:
 after the functionality is developed, but before it is shipped to the customer.[64] 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.[14]:145–146
at the same moment the development project starts, as a continuous process until the project
finishes.[65]

However, even in the waterfall development model, unit testing is often done by the software development
team even when further testing is done by a separate team.[66]

Agile or XP development model

In contrast, 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). The tests are expected to fail initially. Each failing test is followed by writing just enough code
to make it pass.[67] This means 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 goals of this test process are to support continuous integration and to reduce defect rates.[68][67]

This methodology increases the testing effort done by development, before reaching any formal testing team.
In some other development models, most of the test execution occurs after the requirements have been defined
and the coding process has been completed.

A sample testing cycle

Although variations exist between organizations, there is a typical cycle for testing.[3] The sample below is
common among organizations employing the Waterfall development model. The same practices are commonly
found in other development models, but might not be as clear or explicit.

Requirements analysis: Testing should begin in the requirements phase of the software
development life cycle. During the design phase, testers work to determine 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. This part could be complex when running
tests with a lack of programming knowledge.
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 assigned, 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.
 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.

Automated testing
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.

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:

Instruction set simulator, permitting complete instruction level monitoring and trace facilities
Hypervisor, permitting complete control of the execution of program code including:-
Program animation, permitting step-by-step execution and conditional breakpoint at source
level or in machine code
Code coverage reports
Formatted dump or symbolic debugging, tools allowing inspection of program variables on
error or at chosen points
Automated functional Graphical User Interface (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 a single composite tool or an Integrated Development
Environment (IDE).

Measurement in software testing

Quality measures include such topics as correctness, completeness, security and ISO/IEC 9126 requirements
such as capability, reliability, efficiency, portability, maintainability, compatibility, and usability.

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

Hierarchy of testing difficulty

Based on the number of test cases required to construct a complete test suite in each context (i.e. a test suite
such that, if it is applied to the implementation under test, then we collect enough information to precisely
determine whether the system is correct or incorrect according to some specification), a hierarchy of testing
difficulty has been proposed.[69] [70] It includes the following testability classes:

Class I: there exists a finite complete test suite.

Class II: any partial distinguishing rate (i.e., any incomplete capability to distinguish correct
systems from incorrect systems) can be reached with a finite test suite.
Class III: there exists a countable complete test suite.
Class IV: there exists a complete test suite.
Class V: all cases.

It has been proved that each class is strictly included in the next. For instance, testing when we assume that the
behavior of the implementation under test can be denoted by a deterministic finite-state machine for some
known finite sets of inputs and outputs and with some known number of states belongs to Class I (and all
subsequent classes). However, if the number of states is not known, then it only belongs to all classes from
Class II on. If the implementation under test must be a deterministic finite-state machine failing the
specification for a single trace (and its continuations), and its number of states is unknown, then it only belongs
to classes from Class III on. Testing temporal machines where transitions are triggered if inputs are produced
within some real-bounded interval only belongs to classes from Class IV on, whereas testing many non-
deterministic systems only belongs to Class V (but not all, and some even belong to Class I). The inclusion
into Class I does not require the simplicity of the assumed computation model, as some testing cases involving
implementations written in any programming language, and testing implementations defined as machines
depending on continuous magnitudes, have been proved to be in Class I. Other elaborated cases, such as the
testing framework by Matthew Hennessy under must semantics, and temporal machines with rational timeouts,
belong to Class II.

Testing artifacts
A software testing process can produce several artifacts. The actual artifacts produced are a factor of the
software development model used, stakeholder and organisational needs.

Test plan
A test plan is a document detailing the approach that will be taken for intended test activities.
The plan may include aspects such as objectives, scope, processes and procedures,
personnel requirements, and contingency plans.[43] The test plan could come in the form of a
single plan that includes all test types (like an acceptance or system test plan) and planning
considerations, or it may be issued as a master test plan that provides an overview of more
than one detailed test plan (a plan of a plan).[43] A test plan can be, in some cases, part of a
wide "test strategy" which documents overall testing approaches, which may itself be a
master test plan or even a separate artifact.

Traceability matrix
A traceability matrix is a table that correlates requirements or design documents to test
documents. It is used to change tests when related source documents are changed, to select
test cases for execution when planning for regression tests by considering requirement
coverage.

Test case
A test case normally consists of a unique identifier, requirement references from a design
specification, preconditions, events, a series of steps (also known as actions) to follow, input,
output, expected result, and the actual result. Clinically defined, a test case is an input and an
 expected result.[71] This can be as terse as 'for condition x your derived result is y', although
normally test cases describe in more detail the input scenario and what results might be
expected. It can occasionally be a series of steps (but often steps are contained in a separate
test procedure that can be exercised against multiple test cases, as a matter of economy) but
with one expected result or expected outcome. The optional fields are a test case ID, test
step, or order of execution number, related requirement(s), depth, test category, author, and
check boxes for whether the test is automatable and has been automated. Larger test cases
may also contain prerequisite states or steps, and descriptions. A test case should also
contain a place for the actual result. These steps can be stored in a word processor
document, spreadsheet, database, or other common repositories. In a database system, you
may also be able to see past test results, who generated the results, and what system
configuration was used to generate those results. These past results would usually be stored
in a separate table.

Test script
A test script is a procedure or programming code that replicates user actions. Initially, the term
was derived from the product of work created by automated regression test tools. A test case
will be a baseline to create test scripts using a tool or a program.

Test suite
The most common term for a collection of test cases is a test suite. The test suite often also
contains more detailed instructions or goals for each collection of test cases. It definitely
contains a section where the tester identifies the system configuration used during testing. A
group of test cases may also contain prerequisite states or steps, and descriptions of the
following tests.

Test fixture or test data

In most cases, multiple sets of values or data are used to test the same functionality of a
particular feature. All the test values and changeable environmental components are
collected in separate files and stored as test data. It is also useful to provide this data to the
client and with the product or a project. There are techniques to generate test data.

Test harness
The software, tools, samples of data input and output, and configurations are all referred to
collectively as a test harness.

Test run
A report of the results from running a test case or a test suite

Certifications
Several certification programs exist to support the professional aspirations of software testers and quality
assurance specialists. Note that a few practitioners argue that the testing field is not ready for certification, as
mentioned in the controversy section.

Controversy
Some of the major software testing controversies include:

Agile vs. traditional

Should testers learn to work under conditions of uncertainty and constant change or should
they aim at process "maturity"? The agile testing movement has received growing popularity
since 2006 mainly in commercial circles,[72][73] whereas government and military[74] software
 providers use this methodology but also the traditional test-last models (e.g., in the Waterfall
model).

Manual vs. automated testing

Some writers believe that test automation is so expensive relative to its value that it should be
used sparingly.[75] The test automation then can be considered as a way to capture and
implement the requirements. As a general rule, the larger the system and the greater the
complexity, the greater the ROI in test automation. Also, the investment in tools and expertise
can be amortized over multiple projects with the right level of knowledge sharing within an
organization.

Is the existence of the ISO 29119 software testing standard justified?

Significant opposition has formed out of the ranks of the context-driven school of software
testing about the ISO 29119 standard. Professional testing associations, such as the
International Society for Software Testing, have attempted to have the standard
withdrawn.[76][77]

Some practitioners declare that the testing field is not ready for certification
[78] No certification now offered actually requires the applicant to show their ability to test
software. No certification is based on a widely accepted body of knowledge. Certification
itself cannot measure an individual's productivity, their skill, or practical knowledge, and
cannot guarantee their competence, or professionalism as a tester.[79]

Studies used to show the relative expense of fixing defects

There are opposing views on the applicability of studies used to show the relative expense of
fixing defects depending on their introduction and detection. For example:

It is commonly believed that the earlier a defect is found, the cheaper it is to fix it. The following
table shows the cost of fixing the defect depending on the stage it was found.[80] 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. With the advent of modern
continuous deployment practices and cloud-based services, the cost of re-deployment and
maintenance may lessen over time.

Time detected
Cost to fix a defect System Post-
Requirements Architecture Construction
test release
10–
Requirements 1× 3× 5–10× 10×
100×
Time
25–
introduced Architecture – 1× 10× 15×
100×
Construction – – 1× 10× 10–25×

The data from which this table is extrapolated is scant. Laurent Bossavit says in his analysis:

The "smaller projects" curve turns out to be from only two teams of first-year
students, a sample size so small that extrapolating to "smaller projects in general" is
totally indefensible. The GTE study does not explain its data, other than to say it
came from two projects, one large and one small. The paper cited for the Bell Labs
"Safeguard" project specifically disclaims having collected the fine-grained data that
 Boehm's data points suggest. The IBM study (Fagan's paper) contains claims that
seem to contradict Boehm's graph and no numerical results that clearly correspond to
his data points.

Boehm doesn't even cite a paper for the TRW data, except when writing for "Making
Software" in 2010, and there he cited the original 1976 article. There exists a large
study conducted at TRW at the right time for Boehm to cite it, but that paper doesn't
contain the sort of data that would support Boehm's claims.[81]

Related processes

Software verification and validation

Software testing is used in association with verification and validation:[82]

Verification: Have we built the software right? (i.e., does it implement the requirements).
Validation: Have we built the right software? (i.e., do the deliverables satisfy the customer).

The terms verification and validation are commonly used interchangeably in the industry; it is also common to
see these two terms defined with contradictory definitions. According to the IEEE Standard Glossary of
Software Engineering Terminology:[2]:80–81

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.

And, according to the ISO 9000 standard:

Verification is confirmation by examination and through provision of objective evidence that

specified requirements have been fulfilled.
Validation is confirmation by examination and through provision of objective evidence that
the requirements for a specific intended use or application have been fulfilled.

The contradiction is caused by the use of the concepts of requirements and specified requirements but with
different meanings.

In the case of IEEE standards, the specified requirements, mentioned in the definition of validation, are the set
of problems, needs and wants of the stakeholders that the software must solve and satisfy. Such requirements
are documented in a Software Requirements Specification (SRS). And, the products mentioned in the
definition of verification, are the output artifacts of every phase of the software development process. These
products are, in fact, specifications such as Architectural Design Specification, Detailed Design Specification,
etc. The SRS is also a specification, but it cannot be verified (at least not in the sense used here, more on this
subject below).

But, for the ISO 9000, the specified requirements are the set of specifications, as just mentioned above, that
must be verified. A specification, as previously explained, is the product of a software development process
phase that receives another specification as input. A specification is verified successfully when it correctly
implements its input specification. All the specifications can be verified except the SRS because it is the first
one (it can be validated, though). Examples: The Design Specification must implement the SRS; and, the
Construction phase artifacts must implement the Design Specification.

So, when these words are defined in common terms, the apparent contradiction disappears.

Both the SRS and the software must be validated. The SRS can be validated statically by consulting with the
stakeholders. Nevertheless, running some partial implementation of the software or a prototype of any kind
(dynamic testing) and obtaining positive feedback from them, can further increase the certainty that the SRS is
correctly formulated. On the other hand, the software, as a final and running product (not its artifacts and
documents, including the source code) must be validated dynamically with the stakeholders by executing the
software and having them to try it.

Some might argue that, for SRS, the input is the words of stakeholders and, therefore, SRS validation is the
same as SRS verification. Thinking this way is not advisable as it only causes more confusion. It is better to
think of verification as a process involving a formal and technical input document.

Software quality assurance

Software testing may be considered a part of a software quality assurance (SQA) process.[5]:347 In SQA,
software process specialists and auditors are concerned with 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 number 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 an activity to investigate software under test in order to provide quality-related information
to stakeholders. By contrast, QA (quality assurance) is the implementation of policies and procedures intended
to prevent defects from reaching customers.

See also
Data validation Pair testing
Dynamic program analysis Reverse semantic traceability
Formal verification Software testing tactics
Graphical user interface testing Test data generation
Independent test organization Test management tools
Manual testing Trace table
Orthogonal array testing Web testing

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Further reading
 Meyer, Bertrand (August 2008). "Seven Principles of Software Testing" (http://se.ethz.ch/~meye
r/publications/testing/principles.pdf) (PDF). Computer. Vol. 41 no. 8. pp. 99–101.
doi:10.1109/MC.2008.306 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FMC.2008.306). Retrieved November 21,
2017.
What is Software Testing? (https://softwaretestingboard.com/q2a/3379) - Answered by
community of Software Testers at Software Testing Board

External links
Software testing tools and products (https://curlie.org/Computers/Programming/Software_Testin
g/Products_and_Tools) at Curlie
"Software that makes Software better" Economist.com (http://www.economist.com/science/tq/di
splaystory.cfm?story_id=10789417)

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