R N S INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

CHANNASANDRA, BANGALORE - 98

SOFTWARE TESTING
NOTES FOR 8TH SEMESTER INFORMATION SCIENCE

SUBJECT CODE: 06IS81

PREPARED BY

DIVYA K NAMRATHA R
1RN09IS016 1RN09IS028
8th Semester 8th Semester
Information Science Information Science
divya.1rn09is016@gmail.com namratha.1rn09is028@gmail.com

SPECIAL THANKS TO
ANANG A BNMIT & CHETAK M - EWIT

TEXT BOOKS:
FOUNDATIONS OF SOFTWARE TESTING Aditya P Mathur, Pearson Education, 2008
SOFTWARE TESTING AND ANALYSIS: PROCESS, PRINCIPLES AND TECHNIQUES Mauro Pezze, Michal Young, John
Wiley and Sons, 2008
Notes have been circulated on self risk. Nobody can be held responsible if anything is wrong or is improper information or insuf icient information provided in it.

CONTENTS:

UNIT 1, UNIT 2, UNIT 3, UNIT 5, UNIT 7

Visit: www.vtuplanet.com for my notes as well as Previous VTU papers

RNSIT SOFTWARE TESTING NOTES

UNIT 1
BASICS OF SOFTWARE TESTING - 1
ERRORS AND TESTING
Humans make errors in their thoughts, in their actions, and in the products that might result from
their actions.
Humans can make errors in an ield.
Ex: observation, in speech, in medical prescription, in surgery, in driving, in sports, in love and
similarly even in software development.
Example:
o An instructor administers a test to determine how well the students have understood what
the instructor wanted to convey
o A tennis coach administers a test to determine how well the understudy makes a serve

Errors, Faults and Failures

Error: An error occurs in the process of writing a program
Fault: a fault is a manifestation of one or more errors
Failure: A failure occurs when a faulty piece of code is executed leading to an incorrect state that propagates to

The programmer might misinterpret the requirements and consequently write incorrect code. Upon execution,
the program might display behaviour that does not match with the expected behaviour, implying thereby that a
failure has occurred.
A fault in the program is also commonly referred to as a bug or a defect. The terms error and a bug or a
defect. The terms error and bug are by far the most common ways of referring to something wrong in the
program text that might lead to a failure. Faults are sometimes referred to as defects.

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In the above diagram notice the separation of observable from observed behaviour. This separation is
important because it is the observed behaviour that might lead one to conclude that a program has failed.
Sometimes conclusion might be incorrect due to one or more reasons.

Test Automation:
Testing of complex systems, embedded and otherwise, can be a human intensive task.
Execution of many tests can be tiring as well as error-prone. Hence, there is a tremendous need for
software testing.
Most software development organizations, automate test-related tasks such as regression testing,
graphical user interface testing, and i/o device driver testing.
The process of test automation cannot be generalized.

General purpose tools for test automation might not be applicable in all test environments
Ex:
Eggplant
Marathon
Pounder for GUI testing
Load & performance testing tools
eloadExpert
DBMonster
JMeter
Dieseltest
WAPT
LoadRunner
Grinder

Regression testing tools:

Echelon
Test Tube
WinRunner
X test

AETG is an automated test generator that can be used in a variety of applications.

Random Testing is often used for the estimation of reliability of products with respect to speci ic events.
Tools: DART
Large development organizations develop their own test automation tools due primarily to the unique nature
of their test requirements.

Developers and Testers as two Roles:

Developer is one who writes code & tester is one who tests code. Developer & Tester roles are different
and complementary roles. Thus, the same individual could be a developer and a tester. It is hard to
imagine an individual who assumes the role of a developer but never that of a tester, and vice versa.
Certainly, within a software development organization, the primary role of a individual might be to test
and hence hs individual assumes the role of a tester. Similarly, the primary role of an individual who
designs applications and writes code is that of a developer.

SOFTWARE QUALITY
Software quality is a multidimensional quantity and is measurable.

Quality Attributes
These can be divided to static and dynamic quality attributes.

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Static quality attributes
It refers to the actual code and related documents.

Example: A poorly documented piece of code will be harder to understand and hence dif icult to modify.
A poorly structured code might be harder to modify and dif icult to test.

Dynamic quality Attributes:

Reliability
Correctness
Completeness
Consistency
Usability
performance

Reliability:
It refers to the probability of failure free operation.

Correctness:
Refers to the correct operation and is always with reference to some artefact.
For a Tester, correctness is w.r.t to the requirements
For a user correctness is w.r.t the user manual

Completeness:
Refers to the availability of all the features listed in the requirements or in the user manual.
An incomplete software is one that does not fuly implement all features required.

Consistency:
Refers to adherence to a common set of conventions and assumptions.
Ex: All buttons in the user interface might follow a common-color coding convention.

Usability:
Refer to ease with which an application can be used. This is an area in itself and there exist
techniques for usability testing.
Psychology plays an important role in the design of techniques for usability testing.
Usability testing is a testing done by its potential users.
The development organization invites a selected set of potential users and asks them to test the
product.
Users in turn test for ease of use, functionality as expected, performance, safety and security.
Users thus serve as an important source of tests that developers or testers within the organization
might not have conceived.
Usability testing is sometimes referred to as user-centric testing.

Performance:
Refers to the time the application takes to perform a requested task. Performance is considered as a
non-functional requirement.

Reliability:

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(Software reliability is the probability of failure free operation of software over a given time interval
& under given conditions.)
Software reliability can vary from one operational pro ile to another. An implication is that one

Software reliability is the probability of failure free operation of software in its intended
environments.
The term environment refers to the software and hardware elements needed to execute the
application. These elements include the operating system(OS)hardware requirements and any
other applications needed for communication.

Requirements, Behaviour and Correctness:

Product(or) software are designed in response to requirements. (Requirements specify the
functions that a product is expected to perform.) During the development of the product, the
requirement might have changed from what was stated originally. Regardless of any change, the
expected behaviour of the p
during testing.
Example:
Requirement 1: It is required to write a program that inputs and outputs the maximum of these.
Requirement 2: It is required to write a program that inputs a sequence of integers and outputs the
sorted version of this sequence.
Suppose that the program max is developed to satisfy requirement 1 above. The expected output of
max when the input integers are 13 and 19 can be easily determined to be 19.
Suppose now that the tester wants to know if the two integers are to be input to the program on one
line followed by a carriage return typed in after each number.
The requirement as stated above fails to provide an answer to this question. This example
illustrates the incompleteness requirements 1.
The second requirement in (the above example is ambiguous. It is not clear from this requirement
whether the input sequence is to be sorted in ascending or descending order. The behaviour of sort
program, written to satisfy this requirement, will depend on the decision taken by the programmers
while writing sort. Testers are often faced with incomplete/ambiguous requirements. In such
situations a testers may resort to a variety of ways to determine what behaviour to expect from the
program under test).
Regardless of the nature of the requirements, testing requires the determination of the expected
behaviour of the program under test. The observed behaviour of the program is compared with the
expected behaviour to determine if the program functions as desired.

Input Domain and Program Correctness

A program is considered correct if it behaves as desired on all possible test inputs. Usually, the set of
all possible inputs is too large for the program to be executed on each input.
For integer value, -32,768 to 32,767. This requires 232 executions.

If the requirements are complete and unambiguous, it should be possible to determine the set of all
possible inputs.

De inition: Input Domain

The set of all possible inputs to program P is known as the input domain, or input space, of P.
Modi ied requirement 2: It is required to write a program that inputs a sequence of integers and
outputs the integers in this sequence sorted in either ascending or descending order. The order of

character is entered irst followed by the sequence of integers to be sorted. The sequence is
terminated with a period.

De inition: Correctness

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A program is considered correct if it behaves as expected on each element of its input domain.

Valid and Invalid Inputs:

The input domains are derived from the requirements. It is dif icult to determine the input domain for
incomplete requirements.
Identifying the set of invalid inputs and testing the program against these inputs are important parts of
the testing activity. Even when the requirements fail to specify the program behaviour on invalid inputs,
the programmer does treat these in one way or another. Testing a program against invalid inputs might
reveal errors in the program.
Ex: sort program
< E 7 19...>
The sort program enters into an in inite loop and neiter asks the user for any input nor responds to
anything typed by the user. This observed behaviour poins to a possible error in sort.

Correctness versus reliability:

Though correctness of a program is desirable, it is almost never the objective of testing.
To establish correctness via testing would imply testing a program on all elements in the input domain,
which is impossible to accomplish in most cases that are encountered in practice.
Thus, correctness is established via mathematical proofs of programs.
While correctness attempts to establish that the program is error-free, testing attempts to ind if there
are any errors in it.
Thus, completeness of testing does not necessarily demonstrate that a program is error-free.
Removal of errors from the program. Usually improves the chances, or the probability, of the program
executing without any failure.
Also testing, debugging and the error-removal process together increase con idence in the correct
functioning of the program under test.
Example:
Integer x, y
Input x, y
If(x<y) this condition should be x
{
Print f(x, y)
}
Else(x
{
Print g(x, y)
}
Suppose that function f produces incorrect result whenever it is invoked with x=y and that f(x, y) g(x, y),
x=y. In its present form the program fails when tested with equal input values because function g is invoked
instead of function f. When the error is removed by changing the condition x<y to x , the program fails
again when the input values are the same. The latter failure is due to the error in function f. In this program,
when the error in f is also removed, the program will be correct assuming that all other code is correct.
A comparison of program correctness and reliability reveals that while correctness is a binary metric,
reliability is a continuous metric, over a scale from 0 to 1. A program can be either correct or incorrect, it is
reliability can be anywhere between 0 and 1. Intuitively when an error is removed from a program, the
reliability of the program so obtained is expected to be higher than that of the one that contains the error.

Program Use and Operational Pro ile:

An operational pro ile is a numerical description
of how a program is used. In accordance with the
above de inition, a program might have several
operational pro iles depending on its users.
Example: sort program

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Testing and Debugging

(Testing is the process of determining if a program behaves as expected.) In the process one may
discover errors in the program under test. However, when testing reveals an error, (the process used to
determine the cause of this error and to remove it is known as debugging.) As illustrated in igure,
testing and debugging are often used as two related activities in a cyclic manner.
Steps are
1. Preparing a test plan
2. Constructing test data
3. Executing the program
4. Specifying program behaviour
5. Assessing the correctness of program behaviour
6. Construction of oracle

Preparing a test plan:

(A test cycle is often guided by a test plan. When relatively small programs are being tested, a test plan is

Example test plan: Consider following items such as the method used for testing, method for evaluating the
adequacy of test cases, and method to determine if a program has failed or not.
Test plan for sort:
The sort program is to be tested to meet the requirements given in example
1. Execute the program on at least two input seq
characters.
2. Execute the program on an empty input sequence
3.
4. All failures of the test program should be recorded in a suitable ile using the company failure report
form.

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Constructing Test Data:

A test case is a pair consisting of test data to be input to the program and the expected output.
The test data is a set of values, one for each input variable.
A test set is a collection of zero or ore cases.
Program requirements and the test plan help in the construction of test data. Execution of the program
on test data might begin after al or a few test cases have been constructed.
Based on the results obtained, the testers decide whether to continue the construction of additional test
cases or to enter the debugging phase.
The following test cases are generated for the sort program using the test plan in the previous igure.

Executing the program:

Execution of a program under test is the next signi icant step in the testing. Execution of this step for
the sort program is most likely a trivial exercise. The complexity of actual program execution is
dependent on the program itself.
Testers might be able to construct a test harness to aid is program execution. The harness initializes any
global variables, inputs a test case, and executes the program. The output generated by the program
may be saved in a ile for subsequent examination by a tester.

In preparing this test harness assume that:

(a) Sort is coded as a procedure

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(b) The get-input procedure reads the request character & the sequence to be sorted into variables
request_char, num_items and in_number, test_setup procedure-invoked irst to set up the test includes
identifying and opening the ile containing tests.
Check_output procedure serve as the oracle that checks if the program under test behaves correctly.
Report_failure: output from sort is incorrect. May be reported via a message(or)saved in a ile.
Print_sequence: prints the sequence generated by the sort program. This also can be saved in ile for
subsequent examination.

Specifying program behaviour:

State vector: collecting the current values of program variables into a vector known as the state vector.
An indication of where the control of execution is at any instant of time can be given by using an identi ier
associated with the next program statement.

State sequence diagram can be used to specify the behavioural requirements. This same speci ication can then
be used during the testing to ensure if the application con irms to the requirements.

Assessing the correctness of program

Behaviour: It has two steps:
1. Observes the behaviour
2. Analyzes the observed behaviour.

Above task, extremely complex for large distributed system

The entity that performs the task of checking the correctness of the observed behaviour is known as an oracle.

But human oracle is the best available oracle.

Oracle can also be programs designed to check the behaviour of other programs.

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Construction of oracles:
Construction of automated oracles, such as the one to check a matrix multiplication program or a sort
program, Requires determination of I/O relationship. When tests are generated from models such as
inite-state machines(FSMs)or state charts, both inputs and the corresponding outputs are available.
This makes it possible to construct an oracle while generating the tests.

Example: Consider a program named Hvideo that allows one to keep track of home videos. In the data
entry mode, it displays a screen in which the user types in information about a DVD. In search mode, the
program displays a screen into which a user can type some attribute of the video being searched for and
set up a search criterion.
To test Hvideo we need to create an oracle that checks whether the program function correctly in data
entry and search nodes. The input generator generates a data entry request. The input generaor now
requests the oracle to test if Hvideo performed its task correctly on the input given for data entry.

The oracle uses the input to check if the information to be entered into the database has been entered
correctly or not. The oracle returns a pass or no pass to the input generator.

TEST METRICS
The term metric refers to a standard of measurement. In software testing, there exist a variety of metrics.

There are four general core areas that assist in the design of metrics schedule, quality, resources and size.

Schedule related metrics:

Measure actual completion times of various activities and compare these with estimated time to
completion.

Quality related metrics:

Measure quality of a product or a process

Resource related metrics:

Measure items such as cost in dollars, man power and test executed.

Size-related metrics:
Measure size of various objects such as the source code and number of tests in a test suite

Organizational metrics:
Metrics at the level of an organization are useful in overall project planning and management.
Ex: the number of defects reported after product release, averaged over a set of products developed and
marketed by an organization, is a useful metric of product quality at the organizational level.

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Organizational metrics allow senior management to monitor the overall strength of the organization
and points to areas of weakness. Thus, these metrics help senior management in setting new goals and
plan for resources needed to realize these goals.

Project metrics:
Project metrics relate to a speci ic project, for example the I/O device testing project or a compiler
project. These are useful in the monitoring and control of a speci ic project.
1. Actual/planned system test effort is one project metrics. Test effort could be measured in terms
of the tester_man_months.
.
2. Project metric=

Process metrics:
Every project uses some test process. Big-bang approach well suited for small single person projects.
The goal of a process metric is to assess the goodness of the process.
Test process consists of several phases like unit test, integration test, system test, one can measure how
many defects were found in each phase. It is well known that the later a defect is found, the consttier it
is to ix.

Product metrics: Generic

Cyclomatic complexity
Halstead metrics

Cyclomatic complexity
V(G)= E-N+2P
Program p containing N node, E edges and p connected procedures.
Larger value of V(G) higher program complexity & program more dif icult to understand &test than one
with a smaller values.
V(G) values 5 or less are recommended

Halstead complexity
Number of error(B) found using program size(S) and effort(E)
B= 7.6 0.667 0.33

Product metrics: OO software

Metrics are reliability, defect density, defect severity, test coverage, cyclomatic complexity, weighted
methods/class, response set, number of children.

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Static and dynamic metrics:
Static metrics are those computed without having to execute the product.
Ex: no. of testable entities in an application. Dynamic metric requires code execution.
Ex: no. of testable entities actually covered by a test suite is a dynamic quality.

Testability:
to which a system or component facilitates the
establishment of test criteria and the performance of tests to determine whether those criteria have

Two types:
static testability metrics
dynamic testability metrics

Static testability metric:

Software complexity is one static testability metric. The more complex an application, the lower the testability,
that is higher the effort required to test it.

Dynamic metrics for testability includes various code based coverage criteria.
Ex: when it is dif icult to generate tests that satisfy the statement coverage criterion is considered to have low
testability them one for which it is easier to construct such tests.

UNIT 1 QUESTION BANK

No. QUESTION YEAR MARKS

1 How do you measure Software Quality? Discuss Correctness versus Reliability Jan 10 10
Pertaining to Programs?
2 Discuss Various types of Metrics used in software testing and Relationship? Jan 10 10
3 De ine the following June 10 4
i) Errors ii) Faults iii) Failure iv) Bug
4 Discuss Attributes associated with Software Quality? June 10 8
5 What is a Test Metric? List Various Test Metrics ?and Explain any two? June 10 8
6 Explain Static & Dynamic software quality Attributes? July 11 8
7 Brie ly explain the different types of test metrics. July 11 8
8 What are input domain and program correctness? July 11 4
9 Why is it dif icult for tester to ind all bugs in the system? Why might not be Dec 11 10
necessary for the program to be completely free of defects before its delivered to
customers?
10 De ine software quality. Distinguish between static quality attributes and Dec 11 10
dynamic quality attributes. Brie ly explain any one dynamic quality attribute.

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UNIT 2
BASICS OF SOFTWARE TESTING - 2
SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE TESTING
There are several similarities and differences between techniques used for testing software and hardware
Software application Hardware product
Does not integrate over time Does integrate over time
Fault present in the application will remain and no VLSI chip, that might fail over time due to a fault that
new faults will creep in unless the application is did not exist at the time chip was manufactured and
changed tested
Built-in self test meant for hardware product, rarely, BIST intended to actually test for the correct
can be applied to software designs and code functioning of a circuit
It only detects faults that were present when the last Hardware testers generate test based on fault-models
change was made Ex: stuck_at fault model one can use a set of input
test patterns to test whether a logic gate is functioning
as expected
Software testers generate tests to test for correct functionality.
Sometimes such tests do not correspond to any general fault model
For example: to test whether there is a memory leak in an application, one performs a combination of
stress testing and code inspection
A variety of faults could lead to memory leaks
Hardware testers use a variety of fault models at different levels of abstraction
Example:
o transistor level faults low level
o gate level, circuit level, function level faults higher level
Software testers might not or might use fault models during test generation even though the model
exist
Mutation testing is a technique based on software fault models
Test Domain a major difference between tests for hardware and software is in the domain of tests
Tests for VLSI chips for example, take the form of a bit pattern. For combinational circuits, for example a
Multiplexer, a inite set of bit patterns will ensure the detection of any fault with respects to a circuit
level fault model.
For software, the domain of a test input is different than that for hardware. Even for the simplest of
programs, the domain could be an in inite set of tuples with each tuple consisting of one or more basic
data types such as integers and reals.

Example

Consider a simple twp-input NAND gate in Fig.

A test bit vector V: (A=O, B=1) leads to output 0. Whereas the correct output should be 1: Thus V detects a
single S-a-1 fault to the A input of the NAND gate. There could be multiple stuck-at faults also.
Test Coverage It is practically impossible to completely test a large piece of software, for example, an
OS as well as a complex integrated circuit such as modern 32 or 64 bit Microprocessor. This leads to a
notion of acceptable test coverage. In VLSI testing such coverage is measured using a fraction of the
faults covered to the total that might be present with respect to a given fault model.

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The idea of fault coverage to hardware is also used in software testing using program mutation. A
program is mutated by injecting a number of faults using a fault model that corresponds to mutation
operators. The effectiveness or adequacy of a test case is assessed as a fraction of the mutants covered
to the total number of mutatis.

TESTING AND VERIFICATION

Program veri ication aims at proving the correctness of progress by showing that is contains no errors.
This is very different from testing that aims at uncovering errors in a program.
While veri ication aims at showing that a given program works for all possible inputs that satisfy a set
of conditions, testing aims to show that the given program is reliable to that, no errors of any
signi icance were found.
Program veri ication and testing are best considered as complimentary techniques.
In the developments of critical applications, such as smart cards or control of nuclear plants, one often
makes use of veri ication techniques to prove the correctness of some artifact created during the
development cycle, not necessarily the complete program.
Regardless of such proofs, testing is used invariably to obtain con idence in the correctness of the
application.
Testing is not a perfect process in that a program might contain errors despite the success of a set of
tests; veri ication might appear to be a perfect process as it promises to verify that a program is free
from errors.
Veri ication reveals that it has its own weakness.

be an incorrect assumption on the input conditions; incorrect assumptions might be made regarding
the components that interface with the program.
Thus, neither veri ication nor testing is a perfect technique for proving the correctness of program.

DEFECT MANAGEMENT
Defect Management is an integral part of a development and test process in many software development
organizations. It is a sub process of a the development process. It entails the following:
Detect prevention
Discovery
Recording and reporting
Classi ication
Resolution
Production

Defect Prevention
It is achieved through a variety of process and tools: They are,
Good coding techniques.
Unit test plans.
Code Inspections.

Defect Discovery
Defect discovery is the identi ication of defects in response to failures observed during dynamic testing
or found during static testing.
It involves debugging the code under test.

Defect Classi ication

Defects found are classi ied and recorded in a database. Classi ication becomes important in dealing with the
defects. Classi ied into
High severity-to be attended irst by developer.

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Low severity.

Example: Orthogonal defect classi ication is one of the defect classi ication scheme which exist called ODC, that
measures types of defects, this frequency, and Their location to the development phase and documents.

Resolution

scrutiny of the defects, identifying a ix if needed, implementing the ix, testing the ix, and inally closing the
defect indicating that every recorded defect is resolved prior to release.

Defect Prediction
Organizations often do source code Analysis to predict how many defects an application might contain
before it enters the testing the phase.
Advanced statistical techniques are used to predict defects during the test process.
Tools are existing for Recording defects, and computing and reporting defect related statistics.
o BugZilla - Open source
o Fog-Buzz - commercially available tools.

EXECUTION HISTORY
Execution history of a program, also known as execution trace, is an organized collection of information about
various elements of a program during a given execution. An execution slice is an executable subsequence of
execution history. There are several ways to represent an execution history,
Sequence in which the functions in a given program are executed against a given test input,
Sequence in which program blocks are executed.
Sequence of objects and the corresponding methods accessed for object oriented languages such as Java
An execution history may also included values of program variables.

A complete execution history recorded from the start of a execution until its termination
represents a single execution path through the program.
It is possible to get partial execution history also for some program elements or blocks or values of
variables are recorded along a portion of the complete path.

TEST GENERATION STRATEGIES

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Test generation uses a source document. In the most informal of test methods, the source document resides in
the mind of the tester who generates tests based on knowledge of the requirements.
Fig summarizes the several strategies for test generation. These may be informal techniques that assign
value to input variables without the use of any rigorous or formal methods. These could also be techniques that
identify input variables, capture the relationship among these variables, and use formal techniques for test
generation such as random test generation and cause effect graphing.
Another set of strategies fall under the category of model based test generation. These strategies
require that a subset of the requirements be modelled using a formal notation.
FSMs, statecharts, petrinets and timed I/O automata are some of the well known and used formal
notations for modelling various subset requirements.
Sequence & activity diagrams in UML also exist and are used as models of subsets of requirements.
There also exist techniques to generate tests directly from the code i.e. code based test generation.
It is useful when enhancing existing tests based on test adequacy criteria.
Code based test generation techniques are also used during regression testing when there is often a
need to reduce the size of the suite or prioritize tests, against which a regression test is to be performed.

STATIC TESTING
Static testing is carried out without executing the application under test.
This is in contrast to dynamic testing that requires one or more executions of the application under test.
It is useful in that it may lead to the discovery of faults in the application, ambiguities and errors in the
requirements and other application-related document, at a relatively low cost,
This is especially so when dynamic testing expensive.
Static testing is complementary to dynamic testing.
This is carried out by an individual who did not write the code or by a team of individuals.
The test team responsible for static testing has access to requirenments document, application, and all
associated documents such as design document and user manual.
Team also has access to one or more static testing tools.
A static testing tool takes the application code as input and generates a variety of data useful in the test
process.

WALKTHROUGHS
Walkthroughs and inspections are an integral part of static testing.
Walkthrough are an integral part of static testing.
Walkthrough is an informal process to review any application-related document.
eg:
requirements are reviewed---->requirements walkthrough
code is reviewed---->code walkthrough
(or)
peer code review
Walkthrough begins with a review plan agreed upon by all members of the team.
Advantages:
improves understanding of the application.
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both functional and non functional requirements are reviewed.

A detailed report is generated that lists items of concern regarding the requirements.

INSPECTIONS
Inspection is a more formally de ined process than a walkthrough. This term is usually associated with
code.
Several organizations consider formal code inspections as a tool to improve code quality at a lower cost
than incurred when dynamic testing is used.
Inspection plan:
i. statement of purpose
ii. work product to be inspected this includes code and associated documents needed for inspection.
iii. team formation, roles, and tasks to be performed.
iv. rate at which the inspection task is to be completed
v. Data collection forms where the team will record its indings such as defects discovered, coding
standard violations and time spent in each task.

Members of inspection team

a) Moderator: in charge of the process and leads the review.
b) Leader: actual code is read by the reader, perhaps with help of a code browser and with monitors for all
in the team to view the code.
c) Recorder: records any errors discovered or issues to be looked into.
d) Author: actual developer of the code.

It is important that the inspection process be friendly and non confrontational.

Use of static code analysis tools in static testing
Static code analysis tools can be provide control low and data low information.
Control low information presented in terms of a CFG, is helpful to the inspection team in that it allows
the determination of the low of control under different conditions.
A CFG can be annotated with data low information to make a data low graph.
This information is valuable to the inspection team in understanding the code as well as pointing out
possible defect.

Commercially available static code analysis tools are:

o Purify IBM Rationale
o Klockwork Klockwork
o LAPSE (Light weight analysis for program security in eclipse) open source tool

(a) CFG clearly shows that the de inition of x at block 1 is used at block-3 but not at block 5.In fact the de inition
of x at block 1 is considered killed due to its rede inition at block 4.
(b) CFG indicates the use of variable y in the block 3.If y is not de ined along the path from start to block 3,then
there is a data- low error as a variable is used before it is de ined.
Several such errors can be detected by static analysis tools.
->compute complexity metrics, used as a parameter in deciding which modules to inspect irst.

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Model-Based Testing and Model checking:
o Model based testing refers to the acts of modeling and the generation of tests from a formal model of
application behavior.
o Model checking refers to a class of techniques that allow the validation of one or more properties from a
given model of an application.

o Above diagram illustrates the process of model-checking. A model, usually inite state is extracted from
some source. The source could be the requirements and in some cases, the application code itself.
o One or more desired properties are then coded to a formal speci ication language. Often, such
properties are coded in temporal logic, a language for formally specifying timing properties. The model
and the desired properties are then input to a model checker. The model checker attempts to verify
whether the given properties are satis ied by the given model.
o For each property, the checker could come up with one of three possible answer:
o the property is satisfy
o the property is not satis ied.
o or unable to determine
o In the second case, the model checker provides a counter example showing why the property is not
satis ied.
o The third case might arise when the model checker is unable to terminate after an upper limit on the
number of iterations has reached.
o While model checking and model based testing use models, model checking uses inite state models
augmented with local properties that must hold at individual states. The local properties are known as
atomic propositions and augmented models as kripke structure.

CONTROL FLOW GRAPH

o A CFG captures the low of control within a program. Such a graph assists testers in the analysis of a
program to a understand its behaviour in terms of the low of control. A CFG can be constructed
manually without much dif iculty for relatively small programs, say containing less than about 50
statements.
o However, as the size of the program grows, so does the dif iculty of constructing its CFG and hence
arises the need for tools.
o A CFG is also known by the names low graph or program and it is not to be confused with program-
dependence graph(PDG).

Basic Block
Let P denotes a program written in a procedural programming language, be it high level as C or Java or
low level such as the 80x86 assembly. A basic block, or simply a block, in P is a sequence of consecutive
statements with a single entry and a single exit point.
Thus, a block has unique entry and exit points.
Control always enters a basic block at its entry point and exits from its exit point. There is no possibility
of exit or a halt at any point inside the basic block except at its exit point. The entry and exit points of a
basic block co inside when the block contains only one statement.
example: the following program takes two integers x and y and output x^y.

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There are a total of 17 lines in this program including the begin and end. The execution of this program
begins at line 1 and moves through lines 2, 3 and 4 to the line 5 containing an if statement. Considering
that there is a decision at line 5, control could go to one of two possible destinations at line 6 and 8.
Thus, the sequence of statements starting at line 1 and ending at line 5 constitutes a basic block. Its only
entry point is at line 1 and the only exit point is at line 5.

Note: ignored lines 7 and 13 from the listing

because these are syntactic markers, and so
are begin and end that are also ignored.
Flow Graph: De inition and pictorial representation
A low graph G is de ines as a inite set N of nodes and a inite set E of a directed edges. In a low graph
of a program P, we often use a basic block as a node and edges indicate the low of control across basic
blocker.
A pictorial representation of a low graph is often used in the analysis of control behaviour of a
program. Each node is represented by a symbol, usually an oval or a rectangular box. These boxes are
labelled by their corresponding block numbers. The boxes are connected by lines representing edges.
Arrows are used to indicate the direction of low. These edges are labelled true or false to indicate the
path taken when the condition evaluates to true and false respectively.
N={start,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,end}
E={(start,1),(1,2),(1,3),(2,4),(3,4),(4,5),(5,6),(6,5),(5,7),(7,8),(7,9),(9,end)}

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Path
A path through a low graph is considered complete if the irst node along the path is considered
complete if the irst node along the path is start and the terminating node is END.
A path p through a low graph for a program p is considered feasible if there exists at least one test case
which when input to p causes p to be traversed. If no such test case exists, then p is considered
infeasible. Whether a given path p through a program p is feasible is in general an undecidable problem.
This statement implies that it is not possible to write an algorithm that takes as inputs an arbitrary
program and a path through that program, and corr

TYPES OF TESTING
Framework consists of a set of ive classi ies that serve to classify testing techniques that fall under the
dynamic testing category.Dynamic testing requires the excution of program under test.Static testing
consists of testing for the review and analysis of the program.
ive classi iers of testing:-
o 1.C1:source of test generation
o 2.C2:life cycle phase in which testing takes place
o 3.C3:goal of a speci ic testing activity.
o 4.C4:characteristics of the artifact under test
o 5.C5:test process

Classi ier C1: Source of test generation

Black box Testing: Test generation is an essential part of testing. There are a variety of ways to generate
tests, listed in table. Tests could be generated from informally or formally speci ied requirements and
without the aid of the code that is under test. Such form of testing is commonly referred to as black box
testing.

Model based or speci ication based testing:

Model based or speci ication based testing occurs when the requirements are formally speci ied as for
example, using one or more mathematical or graphical notations such as, z, statecharts, event sequence
graphs

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White box testing:
White box testing refers to the test activity where in code is used in the generation of or the assessment
of the test cases.
Code could be used directly or indirectly for test generation.
o In the direct case, a tool, or a human tester examines the code and focuses on a given path to be
covered. A test is generated to cover path.
o In the indirect case, test generated using some black box testing is assessed against some code
based coverage criterion.
Additional tests are then generated to cover the uncovered positions of the code by the analyzing which
parts of the code are feasible.
Control low, data low, and mutation testing can be used for direct as well as indirect code-based test
generation.

Interface testing:
Tests are often generated using a components interface.
Interface itself forms a part of the components requirements and hence this form of testing is black box
testing. However, the focus on the interface leads us to consider interface testing in its own right.
Techniques such as
o --->pairwise testing
o --->interface mutation

Pairwise testing:
Set of values for each input is obtained from the components requirement.

Interface mutation:
The interface itself, such as function coded in /c orCORBA component written in an IDL,serves to
extract the information needed to perform interface mutation.
o pairwise testing:is a black box testing
o interface mutation:is a white box testing
Ad-hoc testing:
In adhoc testing,a tester generates tests from requirements but without the use of any systematic
method.

Random testing:
Random testing uses a systematic method to generate tests.Generation of tests using random testing
requires modeling the input space randomly.

Classi ier C2: Life cycle phase

Testing activities take place throughout the software life cycle.
Each artifact produced is often subject to testing at different levels of rigor and using different testing
techniques.
Unit testing:
Programmers write code during the early coding phase.
They test their code before it is integrated with other system components.
This type of testing is referred to as the unit testing.
System testing:
When units are integrated and a large component or a subsystem formed, programmers do integration
testing of the sub system.
System testing is to ensure that all the desired functionality is in the system and works as per its
requirements.
Note: test designed during unit testing are not likely to be used during integrating and system testing.
Acceptance testing:
two types:
o -alpha testing

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o -beta testing
Carefully selected set if customers are asked to test a system before commercialization.
This form of testing is referred to as beta testing.
In case of contract software, the customer who contracted the development performs acceptability
testing prior to making the inal decisions as to whether to purchase the application for deployment.

Classi ier C3: Goal-directed testing

There exists a variety of goals of course inding any hidden errors is the prime goal of testing, goal-oriented
testing books for speci ic type of failure.
Robustness testing:
Robustness testing refers to the task of testing an application for robustness against unintended inputs.
It differs from functional testing in that the tests for robustness are derived from outside of the valid (or
expected) input space, whereas in the former the tests are derived from the valid input space.
Stress testing:
In stress testing, one checks for the behavior of an application under stress. Handling of over low of
data storage, for example buffers, can be checked with the help of stress testing.
Performance testing:
The term performance testing refers to that phase of testing where an application tested speci ically
with performance requirements in the view.
Ex: An application might be required to process 1,000billing transactions per minute on a speci ic intel
processer-based machine and running a speci ic OS.
Load testing:
The term load testing refers to that phase of testing in which an application is loaded with respect to
one or more applications. The goal is to determine if the application continues to perform as required
under various load conditions.
Ex: a database server can be loaded with requests from a large number of simulated users.

Classi ier C4: Artifact under test

Table 1.7 is a partial list of testing techniques named after the artifact that is being tested. For ex, during the
design phase one might generate a design using SDL notation. This form of testing is known as design testing.

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While testing a batch processing application, it is also important to include an oracle that will check the result
of executing each test script. This oracle might be a part of the test script itself. It could, for example, query the
contents of a database after performing an operation that is intended to change the status of the database.

Classi ier C5: Test process models

Software testing can be integrated into the software development life cycle in a variety of ways. This leads to
various models for the tests process listed in the table 1.8

Testing in the waterfall model:

The waterfall model is one of the earliest and least used, software life cycle.
Figure 1.23 shows different phases in a development process based on the waterfall model. While
veri ication and validation of documents produced in each phase is an essential activity, static as well as
dynamic testing occurs toward the end if the process.
Waterfall model requires adherence to an inherently sequential process, defects introduced in the early
phases and discovered in the later phases could be costly to correct.
There is a very little iterative or incremental development when using the waterfall model.

Testing in the V-model:

The v-model, as shown in the ig, explicitly speci ies testing activities associated with each phase of the
development cycle. These activities begin from the start and continue until the end of life cycle. The testing
activities are carried out parallel with the development activities.

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Spiral testing:
The term spiral testing is not to be confused with spiral model, through they both are similar in that
both can be visually represented as a spiral of activities.
In the spiral testing, the sophisticated of testing of test activities increases with the stages of an evolving
prototype.
In the early stages, when a prototype is used to evaluate how an application must evolve, one focuses on
test planning. The focus at this stage is on how testing will be performed in the remainder of the project.
Subsequent iterations re ine the prototype based on more precise set of requirements.
Further test planning takes place and unit & integration tests are performed.
In the inal stage ,when the requirements are well de ined, testers focus on system and acceptance
testing.

Agile testing:
Agile testing involves in addition to the usual steps such as test planning, test design and test execution.
Agile testing promotes the following ideas:
Include testing -related activities throughout a development project starting from the requirement phase.
Work collaboratively with the customer who speci ies requirements in terms of tests.
testers and development must collaborate with each other rather than serve as adversaries and
Test often and in small chunks.

THE SATURATION EFFECT

The saturation effect is an abstraction of a phenomenon observed during the testing of complex
software systems.
The horizontal axis the igure refers to the test effort that increase over time.

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The test effort can be measured as, for ex, the number of test cases executed or total person days spent
during the test and debug phase.
The vertical axis refers to the true reliability (solid lines) and the con idence in the correct behavior
(dotted lines) of the application under test evolves with an increase in test effort due to error
correction.
The vertical axis can also be labeled as the cumulative count of failures that are observed over time, that
is as the test effort increases.
The error correction process usually removes the cause of one or more failures.

Con idence and true reliability:

Con idence in ig refers to the con idence of the test manager in the true reliability of the application under test.

Reliability in the igure refers to the probability of failure free operation of the application under test in
its intended environment.
The true reliability differs from the estimated reliability in that the latter is an estimate of the
application reliability obtained by using one of the many statistical methods.
o 0-indicates lowest possible con idence
o 1-the highest possible con idence
Similarly,
o 0-indicates the lowest possible true reliability
o 1-the highest possible true reliability.

Saturation region:
->assumes application A in the system test phase.
->the test team needs to generate tests, set up the test environment, and run A against the test.
1. Assume that the testers are generated using a suitable test generation method (TGAT 1) and that
each test either passes or fails.
2. If we measure the test effort as the combined effort of testing, debugging and ixing the errors the
true reliability increases as shown in the ig.
False sense of con identiality:
This false sense of con idence is due to the lack of discovery of new faults, which in turn is due to the
inability of the tests generated using TGA1 to exercise the application code in ways signi icantly
different from what has already been exercised.
Thus, in the saturation region, the robust states of the application are being exercised, perhaps
repeatedly, whereas the faults lie in the other states.
Reducing delta:
Empirical studies reveal that every single test generation method has its limitations in that the resulting
test set is unlikely to detect all faults in an application.
The more complex an application, the more unlikely it is that tests generated using any given method
will detect all faults.
This is one of the prime regions why tests use or must use multiple techniques for test generation.
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Impact on test process:
A knowledge and application of the saturation effect are likely to be of value of any test team while
designing and implementing a test process.

UNIT 2 QUESTION BANK

No. QUESTION YEAR MARKS

1 De ine the following: June 10 4
i)Testability ii)Veri ication
2 What is defect management? List the different activities. Explain any two. June 10 8
3 Explain the following: June 10 8
i) Static testing ii) Model based testing and model checking.
4 Explain how CFG assists the tester in analysis of program to understand the June 11 10
behavior in terms of low of control with examples?
5 Describe the following test classi iers: June 11 10
i) Source of test generation; ii) Life cycle phase; iii)Test process models.
6 Explain Variety of ways in which Software testing can be integrated into the Dec 11 10
Software development life cycle.
7 Consider the following program: Dec 11 6
1) begin 10) while(power 1=0){
2) int x,y,power; 11) z=z*x;
3) loat z; 12) power=power-1;
4) input(x,y); 13) }
5) if(y<0) 14) if(y<0)
6) power=-y; 15) z=1/z;
7) else 16) output(z);
8) power=y; 17) end
9) z=1;
Identify the basic blocks, their entry points and exit points. Draw the control low
graph.
8 Write a short notes on the saturation effect Dec 11 4

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UNIT 3
TEST GENERATION FROM REQUIREMENTS-1
INTRODUCTION
A requirement speci ication can be informal, rigorous, formal, or a mix of these three approaches.
The more formal the speci ication, the higher are the chances of automating the test generation process.
The following igure shows variety of test generation techniques

Often, high level designs are also considered as a part of speci ication
Requirements serve as a source for the identi ication of a input domain of the application to be
developed
A variety of test generation techniques are available to select a subset of the input domain to serve as
test set against which the application will be tested

THE TEST SELECTION PROBLEM

Let D denote the input domain of program p, the test selection problem is to select a subset of tests such
that execution of p against each element of T will reveal all errors in p.
In general, there does not exist any algorithm, to construct such a test. However, there are heuristics
and model based methods that can be used to generate tests that will reveal certain type of faults.
The challenge is to construct a test set T subset of D that will reveal as many errors in p as possible.
Test selection is primarily dif icult because of the size and complexity of the input domain of p.
In most practical problems, the input domain is large, that it has many elements, and often complex,
that is the elements are of different types such as integers, strings, real, Boolean and structure
The large size of the input domain prevents testers from exhaustively testing the program under test
against all possible inputs
The complexity makes it harder to select individual tests
Example: Complex input domain
Consider a procedure p in a payroll-
weekly salary.
ID: int;
Name: string; Complex
Rate: loat;
Hrs_worked: int;

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EQUIVALENCE PARTITIONING
Test selection using equivalence partitioning allows a tester to subdivide the input domain into
relatively small number of sub-domains, say N>1 refer ig(a) , which are disjoint, each subset is known
as an equivalence class.

The equivalence classes are created assuming that the program under test exhibits the same behavior
on all elements that is tests, within a class.
One test is selected from each equivalence class
tical, tests generated are different.

Fault targeted
The entire set of inputs can be divided into at least two subsets
One containing all expected(E) or legal inputs
Other containing all unexpected(u) or illegal inputs
E and u are further divided into subsets (refer ig below)

Example:

2, 3 ,.........., 120]
Set of input vales is now divided into E and u.
E=[1, 2,....., 120] u= the rest.
Furthermore, E is subdivided into [1, 2, ....., 61] and [162, 163, ......,120]

According to According to
requirement R1 requirement R2
Invalid inputs below 1 and above 120 are to be treated differently leading to subdivision of u
into two categories.
Test selected using equivalence partitioning technique aims at targeting faults in A w.r.t inputs
in any of the four regions.

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Relations And Equivalence Partitioning

A relation is a set of n-ary-tuples
Example: a method addList that returns the sum of elements in a list of integers de ines a binary
relation.
Each pair in the relation consists of a list and an integer that denotes the sum of all elements in the list.
Example: ((1,5), 6) and ((-3,14,3), 14)
The relation computed by addList is de ined as follows:
addList: L Z
where, L is a set of all lists of integers and Z is set of integers.
Suppose hat addList has an error (empty list) then,
addList: L Z U{error}
Relations that help a tester partition the input domain of a program are usually of the kind= R:I I ,
where I input domain
Below example shows a few ways to de ine equivalence classes based on the knowledge of
requirements and the program text.
Example: the word count method takes a word w and a ilename f as input and returns the number of
occurrences of w in the text contained in the ile name f.

1. begin
2. string w, f;
3. input (w, f);
4. if(!exists(f))[raise exception; return(0)};
5. if (length(w)==0){return(0)};
6. return(getcount(w, f));
7. end
using the partitioning method, we obtain the following eg:classes
E1: consists of pairs(w, f) where w is a string and f denotes a ile that exists.
E2: consists of pairs (w, f) where w is a string and f denotes a ile that does not exists.

Eq.class w f

E1 non-null Exists, non empty

E2 non-null Does not exist

E3 non-null Exists, empty

E4 null Exists, non empty

E5 null Does not exist

E6 null Exists, empty

So we note that the number of eq. Classes without any knowledge of program code is 2, whereas that
with the knowledge of partial code is 6.
Equivalence classes based on program output
Quest 1: does the program ever generate a 0?
Quest 2: what are the max and min possible values of the output?
These two questions lead to following eq. Classes
E1: output value v is 0
E2: output value v is, the max. Possible
E3: output value v is, the min. Possible
E4: All other output values.

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Equivalence Classes For Variables

Table (a) and (b) offer guidelines for partitioning variables into equivalence classes based on their type.

Compound data types any input data value that has

more than one independent attribute is a compound
type. While generating equivalence classes for such
inputs, one must consider legal and illegal values for
each component of the structure.

Unidimensional versus Multi-Dimensional Partitioning

Unidimensional partitioning (commonly used)
One way to partition the input domain is to consider one input variable at a time.
Thus each input variable leads to a partition of the input domain.
We refer to this style of partitioning as unidimensional equivalence partitioning

Multidimensional partitioning
Another way is to consider the input domain I as the set product of the input variables and de ine a
relation on I.
This procedure creates one partition consisting of several equivalence classes.
We refer to this method as multidimensional equivalence partitioning

Example: consider the application that requires two integers input x and y. Each of these inputs is expected to
lie in the following ranges

For unidimensional partitioning, we apply the partitioning guidelines to x and y individually. This leads to six
equivalence classes
E1: x<3 E4: y<5

E3: x>7 E6: y>9

For multidimensional partitioning, we consider the input domain to be the set product XxY. This leads to 9
equivalence classes

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E3: x<3, y>9 E7: x>7, y>5

E9: x>7, y>9

Figure: geometric representation of equivalence classes derived using uni-dimensional partitioning based on x
and y in (a) and (b) respectively and using multi-dimensional partitioning as in (c)

Systematic Procedure for Equivalence Partitioning

1. Identify the input domain:
Read the requirements carefully and identify all input and output variables, their types, and any conditions
associated with their use .Environment variables also serve as input variables. Given the set of values each
variable can assume, an approximation to the input domain is the product of these sets.
2. Equivalence classing:
Partition the set of values of each variable into disjoint subsets. Each subset is an equivalence class.
Together, the equivalence classes based on an input variable partition the input domain. Partitioning the
input domain using values of one variable is done based on the expected behaviour of the program.

3. Combine equivalence classes:

This step is usually omitted, and the equivalence classes de ined for each variable are directly used to select
test cases. However, by combining the equivalence classes, one misses the opportunity to generate useful
tests.
Eq. classes are combined using multidimensional approach.
4. Identify infeasible equivalence classes:
An infeasible equivalence class is one that contains combination of input data that cannot be generated
during test. Such an equivalence class may arrive due to several reasons.

Example: boiler control system (BCS)

The control software (cs) is required to offer several options.
One of the options, c (for control), is used by a human operator to give one of three commands (cmd).
Change the boiler temperature (temp).
Shut down the boiler (shut).
Cancel the request (cancel).
Command temp causes cs to ask the operator to enter the amount by which the temperature is to be
changed (tempch) Values of tempch are in the range -10 to 10 in increments of 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Selection of option c forces the BCS to examine variable V. If V is set t GUI, the operator is asked to enter one
of the three commands via GUI. However, if V is set to ile, BCS obtains the command from a command line.

The command ile may contain any one of the three commands, together with the value of the temperature
to be changed if the command is temp. The ilename is obtained from the variable
Inputs for the boiler-control software. V and F are environment variables. Values of cmd (command) and
tempch (temperature change) are input via the GUI or a data ile depending on V. F speci ies the data ile.

Identify the input domain:

First we examine the requirements identify input variables, their types, and values.
These are listed below:
variable kind type Value(s)

V Environment Enum { GUI, ile }

F Environment String A ile name

cmd Input via GUI or ile Enum { temp, cancel shut }

tempch Input via GUI or ile enum { -10, -5, 5, 10 }

Therefore, domain subset of S= V×F×cmd×tempch

Eg: (GUI ,-, temp,-5)
(-
Equivalence classing:
Variable partition

V {{GUI}, { ile}, {unde ined}}

F f_valid, f_invalid

cmd {{temp}, {cancel}, {shut}, {c_invalid}}

tempch {{t_valid}, {t_invalid}}

Combine equivalence class:

value.
Discard infeasible equivalence classes:
Note that the GUI requests for the amount by which the boiler temp has to be changed only
when the operator selects temp for cmd. Thus all eq. Classes that match the following template
are infeasible.
{(V, F, {cancel, shut, cinvalid}, tvalid U tinvalid)}

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Test Selection Based On Equivalence Classes

Given a set of equivalence classes that form a partition of the input domain, it is relatively straightforward to
select tests. However, complications could arise in the presence of infeasible data and don't care values. In the
most general case, a tester simply selects one test that serves as a representative of each equivalence class.

GUI Design And Equivalence Classes

While designing equivalence classes for programs that obtain input exclusively from a keyboard, one
must account for the possibility of errors in data entry.
For example, the requirement for an application. The application places a constraint on an input
variable X such that it can assume integral values in the range 0..4. However, testing must account for
the possibility that a user may inadvertently enter a value for X that is out of range.
Suppose that all data entry to the application is via a GUI front end. Suppose also that the GUI offers
exactly ive correct choices to the user for X. In such a situation it is impossible to test the application
with a value of X that is out of range. Hence only the correct values of X will be input.

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BOUNDARY VALUE ANALYSIS

BVA is a test selection technique that targets faults in applications at the boundaries of equivalence
classes.
While equivalence partitioning selects tests from within equivalence classes, boundary-value analysis
focuses on tests at and near the boundaries of equivalence classes.
Certainly, tests derived using either of the two techniques may overlap.
Once the input domain has been identi ied, test selection using boundary value analysis proceeds as
follows:
1. Partition the input domain using one-dimensional partitioning:
This leads to as many partitions as there are input variables. Alternately, a single partition of an
input domain can be created using multidimensional partitioning.
2. Identify the boundaries for each partition:
Boundaries may also be identi ied using special relationships among the inputs.
3. Select test data such that each boundary value occurs in at least one test input
BVA example
Consider
1. Create equivalence classes
Assuming that an item code must be in the range 99 to 999 and qty in the range 1 to 100,

E1: values less than 99

E2: values in the range
E3: values greater than 999

E4: values less than 1

E5: values in the range
E6: values greater than 100
2. Identify boundaries
Below ig shows equivalence classes and boundaries for (a) code and (b) qty. Values at and near the

3. Construct test set

Test selection based on boundary value analysis technique requires that tests must include, for each variable,
values at and around the boundary.
Consider the following test set

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to check that the validity

none of the other tests will be able to reveal the missing-code error. By separating the correct and
incorrect values of different input variable we increase the possibility of detecting the missing-code
error.

CATEGORY PARTITION METHOD

Category partition method is a systematic approach to the generation of tests from requirements.
The method consists of mix of manual and automated steps.
Below ig shows the steps in the generation of tests using the category-partition method.
Tasks in solid boxes are performed manually and generally dif icult to automate.
Dashed boxes indicate tasks that can be automated.

Step 1: analyse speci ication

Here the tester identi ies each functional unit that can be tested separately.

Step 2: identify categories

For each testable unit, the given speci ication is analysed and the inputs isolated.
Next e determine characteristics (or a category )of each parameter and environmental object.

Step 3: partition categories

For each category, the tester determine different cases against which the functional unit must be tested.
Each case is also referred to as a choice.
One or more cases are expected for each category.

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Step 4: identify constraints

A constraint is speci ied using a property list and selector expression.
Property lit has the following form:
[property p1,p2....]
where, property is the keyword and p1, p2... names of individual properties.
A selector expression take one of the following forms.
[if p]
[if p and p2 and...]
Ex for special properties- [error] , [single]

Step 5: (Re) write test speci ication

Tester now writes a complete test speci ication.
The speci ication is written in a test speci ication language (TSL) conforming to a precise syntax.

Step 6: process speci ication

TSL speci ication written in step 5 is processed by an automatic test-frame generator.
This results in a number of test frames.
The test frames are analysed by the tester for redundancy.

Step 7: Evaluate generator output

Here tester examines the test frames for any redundancy or missing cases.
This might lead to a modi ication in the test speci ication (step 5) and a return to step 6.

Step 8: Generate these scripts

Test cases generated from test frames are combined into test scripts.
A test script is a grouping of test cases.
Generally, test cases that do not require any changes in settings of the environment objects are grouped
together.
This enables a test driver to ef iciently execute the tests.

UNIT 3 QUESTION BANK

No. QUESTION YEAR MARKS
1 Explain the following June 10 4
i) Equivalence Partitioning ii)Boundary Value Analysis
2 Explain the steps associated in creating equivalence classes for the given problem June 10 8
requirements?
3 Identify the steps in generation of tests in category partition Method? Explain any June 10 8
two?
4 Describe the steps involved in a systematic procedure for equivalence partitioning June 11 10
by considering boiler control system as an example.
5 Explain the steps involved in the generation of tests using the category partition June 11 10
method with suitable examples.
6 What is Equivalence Partitioning? Explain the systematic procedure for Equivalence Dec 11 10
Partitioning by considering Boiler Control System Example.
7 What is boundary value analysis? Explain the procedure for BVA by considering Dec 11 10
your own example

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UNIT 5
STRUCTURAL TESTING
OVERVIEW
Testing can reveal a fault only when execution of the faulty element causes a failure
Control low testing criteria are de ined for particular classes of elements by requiring the execution of
all such elements of the program
Control low elements include statements, branches, conditions and paths.
A set of correct program executions in which all control low elements are exercised does not guarantee
the absence of faults
Execution of a faulty statement may not always result in a failure
Control low testing complements functional testing by including cases that may not be identi ied from
speci ications alone
Test suites satisfying control low adequacy criteria would fail in revealing faults that can be caught
with functional criteria
Example missing path faults
Control low testing criteria are used to evaluate the thoroughness of test suites derived from functional
testing criteria by identifying elements of the programs
Unexecuted elements may be due to natural differences between speci ication and implementation, or
they may reveal laws of the software or its development process
Control low adequacy can be easily measured with automatic tools

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Figure 5.1: The C function cgi decode, which translates a cgi-encoded string to a plain ASCII string (reversing
the encoding applied by the common gateway interface of most web servers).

Figure 5.2: Control Flow graph of function cgi decode from previous Figure

Table 5.1: Sample test suites for C function cgi decode from Figure 5.1

STATEMENT TESTING
Statements are nothing but the nodes of the control low graph.
Statement adequacy criterion:
Let T be a test suite for a program P. T satis ies the statement adequacy criterion for P, iff, for each
statement S of P, there exists at least one test case in T that causes the execution of S.
This is equivalent to stating that every node in the control low graph model of the program 1 is visited
by some execution path exercised by a test case in T.

Statement coverage:
The statement coverage Cstatement of T for P is the fraction of statements of program P executed by at
least one test case in T

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=
T satis ies the statements adequacy criterion if Cstatement = 1

Basic block coverage: Nodes in a control low graph often represent basic blocks rather than individual
statements, and so some standards refers to basic coverage or node coverage
Examples: in program 1, it contains
A test suite To
17 10
= 18 = 94% or node coverage =11 = 91%
So it does not satisfy the statement adequacy criteria
A test suite 1
18
= =1 or 100%
18

So it satis ies the statement adequacy criterion

A test suite 2
18
= =1 or 100%
18

Coverage is not monotone with respect to the size of the test suites, i.e., test suites that contain fewer
test cases may achieve a higher coverage than test suites that contain more test cases.
Criteria can be satis ied by many test suites of different sizes.
A test suite with fewer test cases may be more dif icult to generate or may be less helpful in debugging.
Designing complex test cases that exercise many different elements of a unit is seldom a good way to
optimize a test suite, although it may occasionally be justi iable when there is large and unavoidable
ixed cost (e.g., setting up equipment) for each test case regardless of complexity.
Control low coverage may be measured incrementally while executing a test suite.
The increment of coverage due to the execution of a speci ic test case does not measure the absolute
ef icacy of the test case.
Measures independent from the order of execution may be obtained by identifying independent
statements.

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Figure 5.3: The control low graph of function cgi decode which is obtained from the program of Figure 5.1
0

after removing node F.

BRANCH TESTING
A test suite can achieve complete statement coverage without executing all the possible branches in a
program.
Consider, for example, a faulty program obtained from program by removing line 41.
cgi d ecod e0 cgi d ecod e

The control low graph of program is shown in Figure 5.3.

cgi d ecod e0

In the new program there are no statements following the false branch exiting node

Branch adequacy criterion requires each branch of the program t be executed by at least one test case.
Let T be a test suite for a program P. T satis ies the branch adequacy criterion for P. Iff , for each branch B
of P, there exists at least one test case in T that causes the execution of B.
This is equivalent to stating that every edge the control low graph model of program P belongs to some
execution path exercised by a test case in T
The branch coverage of T for P is the fraction of branches of program P executed by at least one
test case in T
=

T satis ies the branch adequacy criterion if =1

Examples:
3

100% statement coverage

7
88% branch coverage = = 0.88
8
2
100% statement coverage
100% branch coverage
8
= =1
8

Test suite satis ies the branch adequacy criterion, and would reveal the fault. Intuitively, since traversing all
T2

edges of a graph causes all nodes to be visited, test suites that satisfy the branch adequacy criterion for a
program P also satisfy the statement adequacy criterion for the same program.

CONDITION TESTING
Branch coverage is useful for exercising faults in the way a computation has been decomposed into
cases. Condition coverage considers this decomposition in more detail, forcing exploration not only of
both possible results of a boolean expression controlling a branch, but also of different combinations of
the individual conditions in a compound boolean expression.
Condition adequacy criteria overcome this problem by requiring different basic conditions of the
decisions to be separately exercised.
Basic condition adequacy criterion: requires each basic condition to be covered
A test suite T for a program P covers all basic conditions of P, i.e. it satis ies the basic condition
adequacy criterion, iff each basic condition in P has a true outcome in at least one test case in T and a
false outcome in at least one test in T.

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Basic condition coverage ( _ ) of T for is the fraction of the total no. of truth values assumed
.
by the basic in T _ =
2× .
Basic conditions versus branches
o Basic condition adequacy criterion can be satis ied without satisfying branch coverage
For ex: the test suite 4
Satis ies basic condition adequacy criterion, but not the branch condition adequacy
criterion. (Therefore the outcome of decision at line 27 is always false)
o Thus branch and basic condition adequacy criterion are not directly comparable (neither implies
the other)

Branch and condition adequacy criterion: A test suite satis ies the branch and condition adequacy criterion if it
satis ies both the branch adequacy criterion and the condition adequacy criterion.
A more complete extension that includes both the basic condition and the branch adequacy criteria is the
compound condition adequacy criterion, which requires a test for each possible combination of basic conditions.

For ex: the compound condition at line 27 would require covering the three paths in the following tree

Consider the number of cases required for compound condition coverage of the following two Boolean
expressions, each with ive basic conditions. For the expression a && b && c && d && e, compound
condition coverage requires:

MCDC
o An alternative approach that can be satis ied with the same number of test cases for boolean
expressions of a given length regardless of short-circuit evaluation is the modified condition adequacy
criterion, also known as modified condition / decision coverage or MCDC.
o Key idea: Test important combinations of conditions, avoiding exponential blowup
o the outcome of
each decision
o MC/DC can be satis ied with N+1 test cases, making it attractive compromise b/w no. of required test
cases & thoroughness of the test

PATH TESTING
Path adequacy criterion:
A test suite T for a program P satis ies the path adequacy criterion iff, for each path p of P there exists at
least one test case in T that causes the execution of p.
This is equivalent to stating that every path in the CFG model of prog p is exercised by a test case in T
Path coverage:
The path coverage of T for P is the fraction of path of program P executed by at least one test case
in T

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.
=
.
Practical path coverage criteria
The no. of paths in a program with loops is unbounded, so the previously de ined criterion
cannot be satis ied for these programs. For program with loops, the denominator in the
computation of path coverage is in inite, thus the path coverage becomes zero.
To obtain a practical criterion, it is necessary to partition the in inite set of path into a inite
number of classes and require only that representatives from each class be explored.
Useful criteria can be obtained by
- Limiting the no. of paths to be covered i.e.(no. of traversals of loops)
- Limiting the length of the paths to be traversed
- Limiting the dependencies among selected paths
Boundary interior criterion groups together paths that differ only in the sub-path they follow when
repeating the body of a loop.
Fig below shows deriving a tree from CFG to derive sub-paths for boundary/interior testing
(a) Is the CFG of come C function
(b) Is a tree derived from (a) by following each path in the CFG up to the irst repeated node. The set of
paths from the root of the tree to each leaf is the required set of sub-paths for boundary/interior
coverage.

Figure 5.4: Deriving a tree from a control low graph to derive sub-paths for boundary/interior testing. Part (i) is the control low graph
of the C function cgi decode, identical to Figure 14.1 but showing only node identi iers without source code. Part (ii) is a tree derived
from part (i) by following each path in the control low graph up to the irst repeated node. The set of paths from the root of the tree to
each leaf is the required set of sub-paths for boundary/ interior coverage.

Limitations of boundary interior adequacy

If (a) { The sub-path through this control low can include or
S1; exclude each of the statements.
}
If (b) { Si, so that in total N branches result in 2 paths that must be
S2; traversed
}
If (c) {
S3; choosing input data to force execution of one particular path
} may be very dif icult, or even impossible if the conditions
... are not independent
If (X){
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Sn;
}
Loop boundary adequacy criterion: it is a variant of boundary/interior criterion that treats loop
boundaries similarly but is less stringent w.r.t. other differences among paths
A test suite T for a program P satis ies the loop boundary adequacy criterion, iff, for each loop l in P.
In at least one execution, control reaches the loop, and then the loop control condition evaluated
to False at the irst time it is evaluated.
In at least one execution, control reaches the loop, and then the body of the loop is executed
exactly once before control leaves the loop.
In at least one execution, the body of the loop is repeated more than once.
Linear code sequence and a jump(LCSAJ) adequacy
LCSAJ is de ined as a body of code through which the low of control may proceed sequentially
terminated by a jump in the control low.
1 = statement coverage
2 = branch coverage
+1 = coverage of n consequtive LCSAJs
Cyclomatic testing:
Cyclomatic number is the number of independent paths in the CFG
o A path is representable as a bit vector, where each component of the vector represents
an edge.
o
If e=number of edges,
n=number of nodes,
c=number of connected components of a graph,
then,
cyclomatic number = e n + c for any arbitrary graph
e n + 2 for a CFG
Cyclomatic testing does not require that any particular basis set is covered. Rather it counts the
number of independent paths that have actually been covered, and the coverage criterion is
satis ied when this count reaches the cyclomatic complexity of the code under test.

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Figure 5.5: A C function for searching and dynamically rearranging a linked list, excerpted from a symbol
table package. Initialization of the back pointer is missing, causing a failure only if the search key is found in the
second position in the list.

Figure 5.6: The control low graph of C function search with move-to-front feature.

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Figure 5.7: The boundary/interior sub-paths for C function search.

PROCEDURE CALL TESTING

The criteria considered to this point measure coverage of control low within individual procedures.
They are not well suited to integration testing or system testing.
Moreover, if unit testing has been effective, then faults that remain to be found in integration testing
will be primarily interface faults, and testing effort should focus on interfaces between units rather than
their internal details.
In some programming languages (FORTRAN, for example), a single procedure may have multiple entry
points, and one would want to test invocation through each of the entry points.
More common are procedures with multiple exit points.
Exercising all the entry points of a procedure is not the same as exercising all the calls
For example, procedure A may call procedure C from two distinct points, and procedure B may also call
procedure C. In this case, coverage of calls of C means exercising all three of the points of calls.
Commonly available testing tools can measure coverage of entry and exit points.
Coverage of calls requires exercising each statement in which the parser and scanner access the symbol
table, but this would almost certainly be satis ied by a set of test cases exercising each production in the
grammar accepted by the parser.
In object-oriented programming, local state is manipulated by procedures called methods, and
systematic testing necessarily concerns sequences of method calls on the same object.

COMPARING STRUCTURAL TESTING CRITERIA

Figure 5.8: The subsumption relation among structural test adequacy criteria

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Power and cost of structural test adequacy criteria described earlier can be formally compared using
the subsumes relation.
The relations among these criteria are illustrated in the above igure.
They are divide into two broad categories
Practical criteria
Theoretical criteria
[Explain more looking at the diagram]

THE INFEASIBILITY PROBLEM

Sometimes no set of test cases is capable of satisfying some test coverage criteria for a particular
program, because the criterion requires the execution of a program elements that can never be
executed
Ex:
- Execution of statements that cannot be executed as a result of
o Defensive programming
o Code reuse
- Execution of conditions that cannot be satis ied as a result of interdependent conditions
- Paths that cannot be executed as a result of interdependent decisions.

code is common even in well designed well maintained systems.

Solutions to the infeasibility problem
Make allowances for it by setting a coverage goal less than 100%
Ex: 90% coverage of basic blocks, 10% allowance for infeasible blocks
Require justi ication of each element left uncovered. This approach is taken in some quality
standards, like RTCA/DO-178B & EUROCAE ED-12B for MC/DC
However, it is more expensive (because it requires manual inspection and understanding of each
element left uncovered) and is unlikely to be cost-effective for criteria that impose test obligations for
large numbers of infeasible paths.
This problem, even more than the large number of test cases that may be required, leads us to conclude
that stringent path-oriented coverage criteria are seldom useful.

UNIT 5 QUESTION BANK

No. QUESTION YEAR MARKS
1 Explain the branch testing, with an example. June 10 4
2 Explain the following: June 10 8
i)procedure call testing ii)path testing
3 Explain in detail, condition testing and the infeasibility problem associated with it. June 10 8
4 Describe the following with an example: June 11 10
i)Statement testing ii)Branch testing
5 Explain the path testing for C-function for searching to nearly and dynamically re- June 11 10
arranging a linked list. Also describe the control low graph for the above C-
function.
6 What is structural testing? Explain statement testing and branch testing with Dec 11 10
examples.
7 Distinguish between white box and black box testing categories. Dec 11 4
8 What is path testing? Draw a low graph for the biggest of three numbers program Dec 11 6
and calculate the cyclomatic complexity.

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UNIT 7
TEST CASE SELECTION AND ADEQUACY,
TEST EXECUTION
OVERVIEW
The key problem in software testing is selecting and evaluating test cases
one that ensures correctness of the product.
Unfortunately, the goal is not attainable.
The dif iculty of proving that some set of test cases is adequate in this sense is equivalent to the
dif iculty of proving that the program is correct. In other words,
this sense only if we could establish correctness without any testing at all.
So, in practice we settle for criteria that identify inadequacies in test suites.
If no test in the test suite executes a particular program statement, we might similarly conclude that the
test suite is inadequate to guard against faults in that statement.

TEST SPECIFICATIONS AND CASES

A Test Case Includes input, the expected output, pass/fail criteria and the environment in which the test
is being conducted. Here the term input means all the data that is required to make a test case.
A Test Case speci ication is a requirement to be satis ied by one or more test cases.
Speci ication-based testing uses the speci ication of the program as the point of reference for test input
data selection and adequacy.
A test speci ication can be drawn from system, interface or program.
The distinction between a test case and test speci ication is similar to the distinction between program
speci ication and program.
Software Test cases derived from speci ications of interface and programs are generally termed as glass
box or white box testing.

Test cases should uncover errors like:

Comparison of different data types
Incorrect logical operators are precedence
Expectation of equality when precision error makes equality unlikely
Incorrect comparison or variables
Improper or non-existent loop termination.
Failure to exit when divergent iteration is encountered
Improperly modi ied loop variables.
A test speci ication drawn from system, program and module interface speci ication often describes program
inputs, but they can just as well specify any observable behavior that could appear in speci ications.

Testing Terms
Test case
A test case is a set of inputs, execution conditions, and a pass/fail criterion.

Test case speci ication

A test case speci ication is a requirement to be satis ied by one or more actual test cases.

Test obligation

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A test obligation is a partial test case speci ication, requiring some property deemed important to thorough
testing. We use the term obligation to distinguish the requirements imposed by a test adequacy criterion from
more complete test case speci ications.

Test suite
A test suite is a set of test cases. Typically, a method for functional testing is concerned with creating a test
suite. A test suite for a program, system, or individual unit may be made up of several test suites for individual
modules, subsystems or features.

Test or test execution

We use the term test or test execution to refer to the activity of executing test cases and evaluating their

that the reference is to execution of a whole test suite.

Adequacy criterion
A test adequacy criterion is a predicate that is true (satis ied) or false (not satis ied) of a {program, test suite}
pair. Usually a test adequacy criterion is expressed in the form of a rule for deriving a set of test obligations
from another artefact, such as a program or speci ication. The adequacy criterion is then satis ied if every test
obligation is satis ied by at least one test case in the suite.

ADEQUACY CRITERIA
Adequacy criteria are the set of test obligations. We will use the term test obligation for test
speci ications imposed by adequacy criteria, to distinguish them from test speci ications that are
actually used to derive test cases.
Where do test obligations come from?
Functional (black box, speci ication based): from software speci ications.
Structural (white or glass box): from code.
Model based: from model of system.
Fault based: from hypothesized faults (common bugs).
A test suite satis ies an adequacy criterion if
All the tests succeed (pass).
Every test obligation in the criterion is satis ied by at least one of the test cases in the test suite.
Example: A statement coverage adequacy criterion is satis ied by a particular test suite for a program if
each executable statement in the program is executed by at least one test case in the test suite.
Satis iability:
Sometimes no test suite can satisfy criteria for a given program.
Example: if the program contains statements that can never be executed, then no test suite can satisfy
the statement coverage criterion.
Coping with unsatis iability:
Approach 1: Exclude any unsatis iable obligation from the criterion.
Example: modify statement coverage to require execution only of statements that can be executed.

Approach 2: Measure the extent to which a test suite approaches an adequacy criterion.
Example: If a test suite satis ies 85 of 100 obligations, we have reached 85% coverage.
o A coverage measure is the fraction of satis ied obligations.
o Coverage can be a useful indicator.
- Of progress toward a thorough test suite
o Coverage can also be a dangerous seduction
- Coverage is only a proxy for thoroughness or adequacy.
- It is easy to improve coverage without improving a test suite.
- The only measure that really matters is (cost) effectiveness.

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COMPARING CRITERIA
Empirical approach: would be based on extensive studies of the effectiveness of different approaches to
testing in industrial practice, including controlled studies to determine whether the relative effectiveness of
different testing method, depends on the kind of software being tested, the kind of organization in which the
software is developed & tested, and a myriad of other potential confounding factors.
Analytical approach: answers to questions of relative effectiveness would describe conditions under which
one adequacy criterion is guaranteed to be more effective than another, or describe in statistical terms their
relative effectiveness.

Analytic comparisons of the strength of test coverage depend on a precise de inition of what it means for one

A test suite Ta that does not include all the test cases of another test suite T b may fail revealing the potential
failure exposed by the test cases that are in Tb but not in Ta.
Thus, if we consider only the guarantees that a test suite provides, the only way for one test suite T a to be
stronger than another suite Tb is to include all test cases of Tb plus additional ones

To compare criteria, then, we consider all the possible ways of satisfying the criteria.
if every test suite that satis ies some criterion A is a superset of some test suite that satis ies criterion B, or

The subsumes relation

A test adequacy, a subsumes test coverage criterion B iff, for every program P, every test set satisfying A wrt P also
satis ies B wrt P

Empirical studies of particular test adequacy criteria do suggest that there is value in pursuing stronger
criteria, particularly when the level of coverage attained is very high.
Adequacy criteria do not provide useful guarantees for fault detection, so comparing guarantees is not a
useful way to compare criteria

TEST EXECUTION OVERVIEW

Test execution must be suf iciently automated for frequent re-execution without little human
involvement
The purpose of run-time support for testing is to enable frequent hands-free re-execution of a test suite.
A large suite of test data may be generated automatically from a more compact and abstract set of test
case speci ications

FROM TEST CASE SPECIFICATION TO TEST CASES

Test design often yields test case speci ications, rather than concrete data.

A rule of thumb is that, while test case design involves judgement and creativity, test case generation
should be a mechanical step.
Automatic generation of concrete test cases from more abstract test case speci ications reduce the
impact of small interface changes in the course of development.
Corresponding changes to the test suite are still required with each program change, but changes to test
case speci ications are likely to be smaller and more localized than changes to the concrete test cases.
Instantiating test cases that satisfy several constraints may be simple if the constraints are independent,
but becomes more dif icult to automate when multiple constraints apply to the same item.

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SCAFFOLDING
Code developed to facilitate testing is called scaffolding, by analogy to the temporary structures erected
around a building during construction or maintenance.
Scaffoldings may include
Test drivers (substituting for a main or calling population)
Test harness (substituting for parts of the deployment environment)
Stubs (substituting for functionally called or used by the software under test)
The purpose of scaffolding is to provide controllability to execute test cases and observability to judge
the outcome of test execution.
Sometimes scaffolding is required to simply make module executable, but even in incremental
development with immediate integration of each module, scaffolding for controllability and
observability may be required because the external interfaces of the system may not provide suf icient
control to drive the module under test through test cases, or suf icient observability of the effect.
Example: consider an interactive program that is normally driven through a GUI. Assume that each
night the person goes through a fully automate and unattended cycle of integration compilation, and
test execution.
It is necessary to perform some testing through the interactive interface, but it is neither necessary nor
ef icient to execute all test cases that way. Small driver programs, independent of GUI can drive each
module through large test suites in a short time.

GENERIC VERSUS SPECIFIC SCAFFOLDING

How general should scaffolding be? To answer
We could build a driver and stubs for each test case or at least factor out some common code of the
driver and test management (e.g., JUnit)
... or further factor out some common support code, to drive a large number of test cases from data... or
further, generate the data automatically from a more abstract model (e.g., network traf ic model)
Fully generic scaffolding may suf ice for small numbers of hand-written test cases
The simplest form of scaffolding is a driver program that runs a single, speci ic test case.
It is worthwhile to write more generic test drivers that essentially interpret test case speci ications.
A large suite of automatically generated test cases and a smaller set of handwritten test cases can share
the same underlying generic test scaffolding
Scaffolding to replace portions of the system is somewhat more demanding and again both generic and
application-speci ic approaches are possible
A simplest stub mock can be generated automatically by analysis of the source code
The balance of quality, scope and cost for a substantial piece of scaffolding software can be used in
several projects
The balance is altered in favour of simplicity and quick construction for the many small pieces of
scaffolding that are typically produced during development to support unit and small-scale integration
testing
A question of costs and re-use Just as for other kinds of software

TEST ORACLES
In practice, the pass/fail criterion is usually imperfect.
A test oracle may apply a pass/fail criterion that re lects only a part of the actual program speci ication,
or is an approximation, and therefore passes some program executions it ought to fail
Several partial test oracles may be more cost-effective than one that is more comprehensive
A test oracle may also give false alarms, failing an execution that is ought to pass.
False alarms in test execution are highly undesirable.
The best oracle we can obtain is an oracle that detects deviations from expectation that may or may not
be actual failure.

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RNSIT SOFTWARE TESTING NOTES

Two types
Comparison based oracle

Fig: a test harness with a comparison based test oracle processes test cases consisting of (program input,
predicted output) pairs.

o With a comparison based oracle , we need predicted output for each input
o Oracle compares actual to predicted output, and reports failure if they differ.
o It is best suited for small number of hand generated test cases example: for handwritten Junit
test cases.
o They are used mainly for small, simple test cases
o Expected outputs can also be produced for complex test cases and large test suites
o Capture-replay testing, a special case in which the predicted output or behavior is preserved
from an earlier execution
o Often possible to judge output or behavior without predicting it

Partial oracle
o Oracles that check results without references to predicted output are often partial, in the sense
that they can detect some violations of the actual speci ication but not others.
o They check necessary but not suf icient conditions for correctness.
o A cheap partial oracle that can be used for a large number of test cases is often combined with a
more expensive comparison-based oracle that can be used with a smaller set of test cases for
which predicted output has been obtained
o Speci ications are often incomplete
o Automatic derivations of test oracles are impossible

SELF-CHECKS AS ORACLES
An oracle can also be written as self checks
-Often possible to judge correctness without predicting results.
Typically these self checks are in the form of assertions, but designed to be checked during execution.
It is generally considered good design practice to make assertions and self checks to be free of side
effects on program state.
Self checks in the form of assertions embedded in program code are useful primarily for checking
module and subsystem-level speci ication rather than all program behaviour.
Devising the program assertions that correspond in a natural way to speci ications poses two main
challenges:
Bridging the gap between concrete execution values and abstractions used in speci ication
Dealing in a reasonable way with quanti ication over collection of values

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RNSIT SOFTWARE TESTING NOTES

Structural invariants are good candidates for self checks implemented as assertions
They pertain directly to the concrete data structure implementation
It is sometimes straight-forward to translate quanti ication in a speci ication statement into iteration in
a program assertion
A run time assertion system must manage ghost variables

They must ensure that they have no side effects outside assertion checking
Advantages:
-Usable with large, automatically generated test suites.
Limits:
-often it is only a partial check.
-recognizes many or most failures, but not all.

CAPTURE AND REPLAY

Sometimes it is dif icult to either devise a precise description of expected behaviour or adequately
characterize correct behaviour for effective self checks.
Example: even if we separate testing program functionally from GUI, some testing of the GUI is
required.
If one cannot completely avoid human involvement test case execution, one can at least avoid
unnecessary repetition of this cost and opportunity for error.
The principle is simple:
The irst time such a test case is executed, the oracle function is carried out by a human, and the
interaction sequence is captured. Provided the execution was judged (by human tester) to be correct,
the captured log now forms an (input, predicted output) pair for subsequent automated testing.
The savings from automated retesting with a captured log depends on how many build-and-test cycles
we can continue to use it, before it is invalidated by some change to the program.
Mapping from concrete state to an abstract model of interacting sequences is some time possible but is
generally quite limited.

No. QUESTION YEAR MARKS

1. Explain the following: June 10 4
i)Test Case ii)Test case Speci ication iii)Test Suite iv)Adequacy
Criteria.
2. Explain in detail, the scaffolding and test oracles, with reference to test June 10 8
execution.
3. Discuss: i)Test case speci ication to test cases ii)capture and replay. June 10 8

4. Explain the adequacy criteria. June 11 8

5. Describe the test oracles with a neat diagram. June 11 8

6. What is scaffolding? Explain. June 11 4

7. De ine the following testing terms: Dec 11 10

i)Test case ii)Test case speci ication iii)Test obligation iv)Test suite
v)Smoke testing.
8. What is scaffolding? Distinguish between generic and speci ic Dec 11 10
scaffolding. Brie ly explain the differences.

Prepared By: DIVYA K [1RN09IS016] & NAMRATHA R [1RN09IS028] Page 52