Software Engineering

Lecture 12

Software Testing Techniques

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 Software Testing
• Testing is the process of exercising a program
with the specific intent of finding errors prior
to delivery to the end user.

2
 Testability
• Operability — it operates cleanly

• Observability — the results of each test case

are readily observed

• Controllability — the degree to which testing

can be automated and optimized

3
 Testability

• Simplicity — reduce complex architecture and

logic to simplify tests

• Stability — few changes are requested during

testing

• Understandability — of the design

4
 What Testing Shows
errors

requirements conformance

performance

an indication
of quality
 Who Tests the Software?

developer independent tester

Understands the system Must learn about the system,

but, will test "gently" but, will attempt to break it
and, is driven by "delivery" and, is driven by quality
 Exhaustive Testing

loop < 20 X

There are 1014 possible paths! If we execute one test per

millisecond, it would take 3,170 years to test the program
 Selective Testing

Selected path

loop < 20 X

What you can do is do some selective path testing to assure it is

possible to get down a particular path
 Test Case Design
"Bugs lurk in corners
and congregate at
boundaries ..."
Boris Beizer

OBJECTIVE to uncover errors

CRITERIA in a complete manner

CONSTRAINT with a minimum of effort and time

 Software Testing
Software testing comes in many flavors for testing one method
or program

white-box black-box
methods methods

Methods

Strategies

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
10
 White-Box Testing

... our goal is to ensure that all

statements and conditions have
been executed at least once ...

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
11
 Why Cover?

logic errors and incorrect assumptions

are inversely proportional to a path's
execution probability

we often believe that a path is not

likely to be executed; in fact, reality is
often counter intuitive

typographical errors are random; it's

likely that untested paths will contain
some

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
12
 Basic Path Testing
Next, we derive the
independent paths:
1

2 There are four paths

3 Path 1: 1,2,3,6,7,8
4
5 6
Path 2: 1,2,3,5,7,8
Path 3: 1,2,4,7,8
Path 4: 1,2,4,7,2,4,...7,8
7
Finally, we derive test
cases to exercise these
8
paths.

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
13
 Loop Testing

Simple
loop
Nested
Loops
Concatenated
Loops Unstructured
Loops
These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
14
 Loop Testing: Simple Loops

Minimum conditions—Simple Loops

1. skip the loop entirely
2. only one pass through the loop
3. two passes through the loop
4. m passes through the loop m < n
5. (n-1), n, and (n+1) passes through Simple
the loop loop

where n is the maximum number

of allowable passes

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
15
 Loop Testing: Nested Loops
Nested Loops
Start at the innermost loop.
Set all outer loops to their minimum iteration parameter
values.
Test the min+1, typical, max-1 and max for the
innermost loop, while holding the outer loops at their
minimum values.

Move out one loop and set it up as in step 2, holding all

other loops at typical values. Nested
Loops
Continue this step until the outermost loop has been
tested.

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
16
 Loop Testing: Concatenated Loops

Concatenated Loops

If the loops are independent of one another

then treat each as a simple loop
else* treat as nested loops
endif*
for example, the final loop counter value
of loop 1 is used to initialize loop 2.

Concatenated
Loops
These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
17
 Black-Box Testing

requirements

output

input events

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
18
 Equivalence Partitioning

user output FK
queries mouse formats input
data
picks prompts

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
19
 Equivalence Partitioning

Invalid inputs Valid inputs

System

Outputs
These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
20
 Equivalence Partitioning
Partition system inputs and outputs into
‘equivalence sets’
 If input is a 5-digit integer between 10,000 and 99,999,
equivalence partitions are <10,000, 10,000-99, 999 and > 99,999

Choose test cases at the boundary of these

sets

 00000, 09999, 10000, 99999, 100001

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
21
 Boundary Value Analysis

user output FK
queries mouse formats input
data
picks prompts

output
input domain domain
These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
22
 Other Black Box Techniques

error guessing methods

decision table techniques
cause effect graphing

These courseware materials are to be used in conjunction with Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 5/e and are
provided with permission by R.S. Pressman & Associates, Inc., copyright © 1996, 2001
23
End of Lecture

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