Established as per the Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, 1956

Approved by AICTE, COA and BCI, New Delhi

UNIT 1: [15 Hours]

A perspective on Testing
Software Testing Principles
Pinaka Pani. R

School of CSA
 Contents
• General Testing Principles (The Seven Key Principles)
• Fundamental Test Process
• Psychology of Testing
 General Testing Principles

1.Testing shows presence of Defects

2.Exhaustive Testing is Impossible!
3.Early Testing
4.Defect Clustering
5.The Pesticide Paradox
6.Testing is Context Dependent
7.Absence of Errors Fallacy
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

1.Testing shows the presence of Defects

( it is not a ghost. It is a fact )

• We test to find Faults (as known as Defects)

• As we find more defects, the probability of undiscovered defects

remaining in a system reduces ( decreasing nature).

• However Testing cannot prove that there are no defects present

 Why Testing is necessary
Testing Pearls of Wisdom

• “The probability of the existence of more errors in a section of a program is proportional to the
number of errors already found in that program”

• “Do not plan a test effort under the tacit assumption that no errors will be found”

• “A good test is one that has a high probability of detecting an as yet undiscovered error”

• “A successful test is one that detects an as-yet undiscovered error”

Myers 2004
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

2.Exhaustive Testing is Impossible!

• We have learned that we cannot test everything (i.e. all combinations of

inputs and pre-conditions).

• That is we must Prioritise our testing effort using a Risk Based Approach.
 Why Testing is Necessary
Why don’t we test everything ?
System has 20 screens
Average 4 menus / screen
Average 3 options / menu
Average of 10 fields / screen
2 types of input per field
Around 100 possible values

Approximate total for exhaustive testing

20 x 4 x 3 x 10 x 2 x 100 = 480,000 tests
Test length = 1 sec then test duration = 17.7 days
Test length = 10 sec then test duration = 34 weeks
Test length = 1 min then test duration = 4 years
Test length = 10 mins then test duration = 40 years!

It is not a matter of time. But,time is money (

salary is taken by hour. So second is valuable for
 Urgency of Equilibrium

Number of Cost of
• If you test too little, the Missed Bugs Testing
probability of software
failure increases Q
u
a Testing

• If you try to test too n Under Equilibrium

t
Testing Over
much, the development i
cost becomes t Testing
y
unaffordable

• So, we need to conduct Amount of Testing

some sort of equilibrium
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

3.Early testing
• Testing activities should start as early as
possible in the development life cycle

• These activities should be focused on

defined objectives – outlined in the Test
Strategy

• Remember from our Definition of

Testing, that Testing doesn’t start once
the code has been written!
 Cost of Fault Correction

100
90
80
70
Relative 60
Multiples 50
Cost
40
30
20
10
0
Reqs Des Code Unit Accept Use
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

4. Defect Clustering
• Defects are not evenly distributed in a system
• They are ‘clustered’
• In other words, most defects found during testing are usually
confined to a small number of modules ( 80% of uncovered
errors focused in 20% modules of the whole application)
“Pareto law”

• Similarly, most operational failures of a system are usually

confined to a small number of modules
• An important consideration in test prioritisation!
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

5. The Pesticide Paradox

• Testing identifies bugs, and programmers respond to fix them.

• As bugs are eliminated by the programmers, the software
improves.
• As software improves the effectiveness of previous tests
erodes.
• Therefore we must learn, create and use new tests based on
new techniques to catch new bugs ( i.e. It is not a matter of
repetition. It is a matter of learning and improving).
• N.B It's called the "pesticide paradox" after the agricultural phenomenon, where bugs such as the boll weevil build up tolerance to
pesticides, leaving you with the choice of ever-more powerful pesticides followed by ever-more powerful bugs or an altogether different
approach.’ – Beizer 1995
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

6. Testing is Context (background)Dependent

• Testing is done differently in different contexts

• For example, safety-critical software is tested differently from
an e-commerce site
• Whilst, Testing can be 50% of development costs, in NASA's
Apollo program (it was 80% testing)
• 3 to 10 failures per thousand lines of code (KLOC) typical for
commercial software
• 1 to 3 failures per KLOC typical for industrial software
• 0.01 failures per KLOC for NASA Shuttle code!
• Also different industries impose different testing standards
 General Testing Principles
The Seven Key Principles

7.Absence of Errors Fallacy

• If we build a system and, in doing so, find and fix

defects ....
It doesn’t make it a good system

• Even after defects have been resolved, it may still be

unusable and/or does not fulfil the users’ needs and
expectations
 3.2 Fundamental Test Process

The five stages of the fundamental test process

• Test Planning and Control

• Test Analysis and Design

• Test Implementation and Execution

• Evaluating Exit Criteria and Reporting

• Test Closure Activities

 Fundamental Test Process
Fundamental Test Process

• The process always starts with planning and ends with

test closure activities
• Each phase may have to be executed a number of
times in order to fulfil exit or completion criteria
• Although logically sequential, the activities in the
process may overlap or take place concurrently
 Fundamental Test Process
1.Test Planning and Control
Test Planning
• Specifies how the test strategy and project Test Plan
A document describing the scope, approach, resources and schedule of intended test activities

apply to the software under test

• Principally:
– verify the mission,
– define the Test objectives
– Specify the Test Activities required to meet the mission
and objectives
 Fundamental Test Process
Test Planning and Control
Test Planning (continued)

• Major Tasks are :-

– Identify the objectives of testing
– Determine Scope
– Determine the Test Approach
– Determine the required test resources
– Implement the test policy and/or the test strategy
– Schedule test analysis and design tasks
– Schedule test implementation, execution and evaluation
– Determine the Exit Criteria

• More on Test Planning in Test Management section

 Fundamental Test Process
Test Planning and Control
Test Control
• The ongoing activity of comparing actual progress against the plan
• Reporting status, including deviations from the plan
• Taking actions necessary to meet the mission and objectives of the project
• Test Planning takes into account the feedback from monitoring and control
activities.

• Major Tasks are :-

– measure and analyse results
– Monitor and document progress, test coverage and exit criteria
– initiate corrective actions
– make decisions

• More on Test Control in Test Management section

 Fundamental Test Process
2. Test Analysis and Design
• General testing objectives are transformed into tangible Test Conditions (An item or
event of a component or system that could be verified by one or more test cases, e.g. a function, transaction, feature, quality attribute,
or structural element)

and Test Cases (A set of input values, execution preconditions, expected results and execution
Post-conditions, developed for a particular objective or test condition, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify
compliance with a specific requirement).

• Major tasks are:

– Review the Test Basis - in doing so evaluate testability of Test Basis and Test Object(s)
– From Analysis of Test Basis and Test Items, identify and prioritize Test Conditions and
associated Test Data
– Test Conditions and associated Test Data are documented in a Test Design Specification
– Design and prioritize the Test Cases
– Identify Test Data required to support Test Cases
– Design the test environment set-up
– Identify any required infrastructure and tools
 Fundamental Test Process
Test Analysis and Design

• Each Test Case is specified in terms of :-

– its objective
– the initial state of the system
– the input
– the expected result.
 Fundamental Test Process
3. Test Implementation and Execution

• Test Cases are combined in a particular order to form Test Procedures

Specifications
• Test Data is created
• The test environment is created
• Major tasks are:

Create Test Scripts and Data

– Develop, implement and prioritise Test Cases
– Create the Test Scripts
– Create test data
– Preparing test harnesses ( dedicated resources)
– Write automated test scripts
– Create test suites from the test cases for efficient test execution
Check the Environment
– Verify that the test environment has been set up correctly
 Fundamental Test Process
Test Implementation and Execution

• Major tasks (continued):

Execute the Tests

– Execute the Test Cases (manually or through tools)
according to the planned sequence.
– Log ( record ) the outcome of test execution
– Test execution records should uniquely identify the
versions of the software under test, test tools and Testware
– It should be possible to establish that all testing has been
carried out by reference to the test records.
 Fundamental Test Process

Test Implementation and Execution

• Major tasks (continued):

Check the Results

– Compare actual results with expected results
– Report discrepancies as Incidents
– Analyse Incidents to establish Root cause
– Repeat, as necessary, test activities as result of action
taken for each discrepancy
– The test coverage levels achieved for those measures
specified as test completion criteria should be recorded.
 Fundamental Test Process
Testing Pearl of Wisdom

• “carefully inspect the results of each test”

Ref: Myers, The Art of Software Testing, J Wiley and Sons, 1979
 Fundamental Test Process
4. Evaluating Exit Criteria and Reporting
• Exit criteria ensures that the testing of the application is
completed and ready.
• Test execution is assessed against the objectives defined in
Test Planning
• This should be done for each Test Level (i.e. test stage)
A group of test activities that are organized and managed together.

• Major tasks are:

– Check test logs against the exit criteria specified in Test Planning
– If the exit criteria has not been met
• Assess if more tests are needed
• Assess which test activities may need to be repeated
– Assess if the exit criteria specified should be changed
– Produce a test summary report for stakeholders review
 Fundamental Test Process
How to measure exit criteria ?

1. All the planned requirements must be met

2. All the high Priority bugs should be closed

3. All the test cases should be executed

4. If the scheduled time out is arrived

5. Test manager must sign off the release

Note: All these parameters can be met by percentages( not 100 %)

 Fundamental Test Process
5 Phases of the Fundamental Test Process

Fix test design and repeat

Fix component or test cases/scripts
and repeat

Test Planning Test Analysis Test Implementation Evaluating Exit Criteria Test Closure
and Control and Design and Execution and Reporting Activities

Fix test design and repeat

Fix component test plan and repeat

 Psychology of Testing

Testing Pearl of Wisdom

• “Testing is an extremely creative and intellectually challenging task”

• “Tests must be written for invalid and unexpected, as well as valid and
expected, input conditions”

Myers - 1979
 Psychology of Testing

Traits of Good Testers

• A Tester needs:

– good communication skills

– good observation skills
– people handling skills
– Curiosity ( testing activities interest )
– patience
– reliability
– Thoroughness ( carefulness)
– an inquisitive nature
– attention to detail
– creativity in terms of identifying likely faults
– Experience

• However as with most other disciplines an effective test

team will need a mix of skills so it is difficult to generalise
 Psychology of Testing
Developer vs Tester Relationship

• The relationship between a Developer and a Tester is not

normally an easy one because:-
– testers point out problems with software
– developers like to think their software is perfect
– testers are perceived as delaying the project by
finding faults in the system
– when the development slips, testers normally have to
work long hours to test the product, which in turn can
cause anger
• It is important that they work together
• It is also important that they have mutual respect for
each other.
• Collaboration is the right approach – we work to a
common goal!
• Communicate findings objectively, not subjectively
1. The Triangle Problem
Data flow diagram for Triangle Problem
2. The NextDate function
 3. Commission Problem statement
• Lock-Stock-Barrel Commission Rifle salespersons in the Arizona Territory
sold rifle locks, stocks, and barrels made by a gunsmith in Missouri.
• Lock = $45.00, stock = $30.00, barrel = $25.00.
• Each salesperson had to sell at least one complete rifle per month ($100).
• The most one salesperson could sell in a month was 70 locks. 80 stocks, and
90 barrels.
• Each salesperson sent a telegram to the Missouri company with the total
order for each town (s)he visits.
• At the end of the month 1<=towns visited <=10.
• Per month Commission: 10% on sales up to $1000, 15% on the next $800,
and 20% on any sales in excess of $1800.
4. Simple Automated Teller Machine (SATM)
Embedded Windshield Wiper Control
• Problem (Requirements) Statement.
Write me an “embedded” program that Controls the 4 speed settings of a windshield
wiper:
• Off
• Intermittent
• Low
• High
For “off”, the windshield wiper does not move.
• For Intermittent setting, there are 3 “dial” sub settings:
• 1 : wiper wipes 4 times per minute
• 2: wiper wipes 6 times per minute
• 3: wiper wipes 15 times per minute
• For Low, the wiper wipes 30 times per minute
• For High, the wiper wipes 70 times per minutes
THANK YOU