Software Testing

• Development testing
• Test-driven development
• Release testing
• User testing

1
 Program testing
• Testing is intended to show that a program does what it is
intended to do and to discover program defects before it is put
into use.
• When you test software, you execute a program using artificial
data.
• You check the results of the test run for errors, anomalies or
information about the program’s non-functional attributes.
• Can reveal the presence of errors NOT their absence.
• Testing is part of a more general verification and validation
process, which also includes static validation techniques.

Chapter 8 Software testing 2

 Program testing goals
• To demonstrate to the developer and the customer that the
software meets its requirements.
– For custom software, this means that there should be at least one
test for every requirement in the requirements document. For
generic software products, it means that there should be tests for
all of the system features, plus combinations of these features,
that will be incorporated in the product release.
• To discover situations in which the behavior of the software
is incorrect, undesirable or does not conform to its
specification.
– Defect testing is concerned with rooting out undesirable system
behavior such as system crashes, unwanted interactions with other
systems, incorrect computations and data corruption.

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 Validation and defect testing
• The first goal leads to validation testing
– You expect the system to perform correctly
using a given set of test cases that reflect the
system’s expected use.
• The second goal leads to defect testing
– The test cases are designed to expose defects.
The test cases in defect testing can be
deliberately obscure and need not reflect how
the system is normally used.
Chapter 8 Software testing 4
 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 behavior 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

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 Verification vs validation
• Verification:
"Are we building the product right”.
• The software should conform to its
specification.
• Validation:
"Are we building the right product”.
• The software should do what the user really
requires.
Chapter 8 Software testing 6
 V & V confidence
• Aim of V & V is to establish confidence that the system is ‘fit
for purpose’.
• Depends on system’s purpose, user expectations and
marketing environment
– Software purpose
• The level of confidence depends on how critical the software
is to an organisation.
– User expectations
• Users may have low expectations of certain kinds of
software.
– Marketing environment
• Getting a product to market early may be more important
than finding defects in the program.
Chapter 8 Software testing 7
 Inspections and testing

• Software inspections Concerned with

analysis of the static system representation
to discover problems (static verification)
– May be supplement by tool-based document and code analysis.
– Discussed in Chapter 15.

• Software testing Concerned with exercising and

observing product behaviour (dynamic verification)
– The system is executed with test data and its operational
behaviour is observed.

Chapter 8 Software testing 8

Inspections and testing

Chapter 8 Software testing 9

 Software inspections
• These involve people examining the source representation
with the aim of discovering anomalies and defects.
• Inspections not require execution of a system so may be
used before implementation.
• They may be applied to any representation of the system
(requirements, design,configuration data, test data, etc.).
• They have been shown to be an effective technique for
discovering program errors.

Chapter 8 Software testing 10

 Advantages of inspections
• During testing, errors can mask (hide) other errors.
Because inspection is a static process, you don’t
have to be concerned with interactions between
errors.
• Incomplete versions of a system can be inspected
without additional costs. If a program is incomplete,
then you need to develop specialized test harnesses
to test the parts that are available.
• As well as searching for program defects, an
inspection can also consider broader quality
attributes of a program, such as compliance with
standards, portability and maintainability.
Chapter 8 Software testing 11
 Inspections and testing
• Inspections and testing are complementary and not
opposing verification techniques.
• Both should be used during the V & V process.
• Inspections can check conformance with a specification but
not conformance with the customer’s real requirements.
• Inspections cannot check non-functional characteristics
such as performance, usability, etc.

Chapter 8 Software testing 12

 Stages of testing
• Development testing, where the system is
tested during development to discover bugs
and defects.
• Release testing, where a separate testing
team test a complete version of the system
before it is released to users.
• User testing, where users or potential users
of a system test the system in their own
environment.
Chapter 8 Software testing 13
 Development testing
• Development testing includes all testing activities that
are carried out by the team developing the system.
– Unit testing, where individual program units or object classes
are tested. Unit testing should focus on testing the
functionality of objects or methods.
– Component testing, where several individual units are
integrated to create composite components. Component
testing should focus on testing component interfaces.
– System testing, where some or all of the components in a
system are integrated and the system is tested as a whole.
System testing should focus on testing component
interactions.

Chapter 8 Software testing 14

 Unit testing
• Unit testing is the process of testing individual
components in isolation.
• It is a defect testing process.
• Units 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.

Chapter 8 Software testing 15

 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.
Chapter 8 Software testing 16
 Automated testing
• Whenever possible, unit testing should be
automated so that tests are run and checked
without manual intervention.
• In automated unit testing, you make use of a test
automation framework (such as JUnit) to write and
run your program tests.
• Unit testing frameworks provide generic test classes
that you extend to create specific test cases. They
can then run all of the tests that you have
implemented and report, often through some GUI,
on the success of otherwise of the tests.

Chapter 8 Software testing 17

 Automated test components
• A setup part, where you initialize the system
with the test case, namely the inputs and
expected outputs.
• A call part, where you call the object or
method to be tested.
• An assertion part where you compare the
result of the call with the expected result. If
the assertion evaluates to true, the test has
been successful if false, then it has failed.
Chapter 8 Software testing 18
 Choosing unit test cases
• The test cases should show that, when used as
expected, the component that you are testing does
what it is supposed to do.
• If there are defects in the component, these should be
revealed by test cases.
• This leads to 2 types of unit test case:
– The first of these should reflect normal operation of a
program and should show that the component works as
expected.
– The other kind of test case should be based on testing
experience of where common problems arise. It should use
abnormal inputs to check that these are properly processed
and do not crash the component.
Chapter 8 Software testing 19
 Testing strategies
• Partition testing, where you identify groups
of inputs that have common characteristics
and should be processed in the same way.
– You should choose tests from within each of
these groups.
• Guideline-based testing, where you use
testing guidelines to choose test cases.
– These guidelines reflect previous experience of
the kinds of errors that programmers often
make when developing components.
Chapter 8 Software testing 20
 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.

Chapter 8 Software testing 21

 General testing guidelines
• Choose inputs that force the system to
generate all error messages
• Design inputs that cause input buffers to
overflow
• Repeat the same input or series of inputs
numerous times
• Force invalid outputs to be generated
• Force computation results to be too large or
too small.
Chapter 8 Software testing 22
 Component testing
• Software components are often composite
components that are made up of several interacting
objects.
– For example, in the weather station system, the
reconfiguration component includes objects that deal with
each aspect of the reconfiguration.
• You access the functionality of these objects through
the defined component interface.
• Testing composite components should therefore focus
on showing that the component interface behaves
according to its specification.
– You can assume that unit tests on the individual objects
within the component have been completed.
Chapter 8 Software testing 23
 System testing
• System testing during development involves
integrating components to create a version of the
system and then testing the integrated system.
• The focus in system testing is testing the
interactions between components.
• System testing checks that components are
compatible, interact correctly and transfer the
right data at the right time across their interfaces.

• System testing tests the emergent behaviour of a

system.
Chapter 8 Software testing 24
 System and component testing
• During system testing, reusable components that
have been separately developed and off-the-shelf
systems may be integrated with newly developed
components. The complete system is then tested.
• Components developed by different team
members or sub-teams may be integrated at this
stage. System testing is a collective rather than an
individual process.
– In some companies, system testing may involve a
separate testing team with no involvement from
designers and programmers.

Chapter 8 Software testing 25

 Testing policies
• Exhaustive system testing is impossible so
testing policies which define the required
system test coverage may be developed.
• Examples of testing policies:
– All system functions that are accessed through
menus should be tested.
– Combinations of functions (e.g. text formatting) that
are accessed through the same menu must be
tested.
– Where user input is provided, all functions must be
tested with both correct and incorrect input.
Chapter 8 Software testing 26
 Release testing
• Release testing is the process of testing a particular
release of a system that is intended for use outside of
the development team.
• The primary goal of the release testing process is to
convince the supplier of the system that it is good
enough for use.
– Release testing, therefore, has to show that the system
delivers its specified functionality, performance and
dependability, and that it does not fail during normal use.
• Release testing is usually a black-box testing process
where tests are only derived from the system
specification.
Chapter 8 Software testing 27
 Release testing and system testing
• Release testing is a form of system testing.
• Important differences:
– A separate team that has not been involved in
the system development, should be responsible
for release testing.
– System testing by the development team should
focus on discovering bugs in the system (defect
testing). The objective of release testing is to
check that the system meets its requirements
and is good enough for external use (validation
testing).
Chapter 8 Software testing 28
 Requirements based testing
• Requirements-based testing involves
examining each requirement and developing a
test or tests for it.
• Mentcare system requirements:
– If a patient is known to be allergic to any particular
medication, then prescription of that medication
shall result in a warning message being issued to the
system user.
– If a prescriber chooses to ignore an allergy warning,
they shall provide a reason why this has been
ignored.
Chapter 8 Software testing 29
 Requirements tests
• Set up a patient record with no known allergies. Prescribe medication for
allergies that are known to exist. Check that a warning message is not issued by
the system.
• Set up a patient record with a known allergy. Prescribe the medication to that
the patient is allergic to, and check that the warning is issued by the system.
• Set up a patient record in which allergies to two or more drugs are recorded.
Prescribe both of these drugs separately and check that the correct warning for
each drug is issued.
• Prescribe two drugs that the patient is allergic to. Check that two warnings are
correctly issued.
• Prescribe a drug that issues a warning and overrule that warning. Check that the
system requires the user to provide information explaining why the warning
was overruled.

Chapter 8 Software testing 30

 Performance testing
• Part of release testing may involve testing the
emergent properties of a system, such as
performance and reliability.
• Tests should reflect the profile of use of the system.
• Performance tests usually involve planning a series of
tests where the load is steadily increased until the
system performance becomes unacceptable.
• Stress testing is a form of performance testing where
the system is deliberately overloaded to test its failure
behaviour.

Chapter 8 Software testing 31

 User testing
• User or customer testing is a stage in the testing
process in which users or customers provide input
and advice on system testing.
• User testing is essential, even when comprehensive
system and release testing have been carried out.
– The reason for this is that influences from the user’s
working environment have a major effect on the
reliability, performance, usability and robustness of a
system. These cannot be replicated in a testing
environment.

Chapter 8 Software testing 32

 Types of user testing
• Alpha testing
– Users of the software work with the development team to
test the software at the developer’s site.
• Beta testing
– A release of the software is made available to users to
allow them to experiment and to raise problems that they
discover with the system developers.
• Acceptance testing
– Customers test a system to decide whether or not it is
ready to be accepted from the system developers and
deployed in the customer environment. Primarily for
custom systems.
Chapter 8 Software testing 33
 Stages in the acceptance testing process
• Define acceptance criteria
• Plan acceptance testing
• Derive acceptance tests
• Run acceptance tests
• Negotiate test results
• Reject/accept system

Chapter 8 Software testing 34

 Key points
• Testing can only show the presence of errors in a
program. It cannot demonstrate that there are no
remaining faults.
• Development testing is the responsibility of the
software development team. A separate team
should be responsible for testing a system before it
is released to customers.
• Development testing includes unit testing, in which
you test individual objects and methods component
testing in which you test related groups of objects
and system testing, in which you test partial or
complete systems.
Chapter 8 Software testing 35
 Key points
• When testing software, you should try to ‘break’ the software by using
experience and guidelines to choose types of test case that have been
effective in discovering defects in other systems.
• Wherever possible, you should write automated tests. The tests are
embedded in a program that can be run every time a change is made to a
system.
• Test-first development is an approach to development where tests are
written before the code to be tested.
• Scenario testing involves inventing a typical usage scenario and using this
to derive test cases.
• Acceptance testing is a user testing process where the aim is to decide if
the software is good enough to be deployed and used in its operational
environment.

Chapter 8 Software testing 36