Test design
Encyclopedia
In software engineering, test design is the act of creating and writing test suite
s for testing a software.
Well designed test suites will provide for an efficient testing. The test suite will have just enough test cases to test the system, but no more. This way, there is no time lost in writing redundant test cases that would unnecessarily consume time each time they are executed. In addition, the test suite will not contain brittle or ambiguous test cases.
or symbolic execution
. Model checking can ensure all the path
s of a simple program are exercised, while symbolic execution can detect bugs and generate a test case that will expose the bug when the software is run using this test case.
However, as good as automatic test design can be, it is not appropriate for all circumstances. If the complexity becomes too high, then human test design must come into play as it is far more flexible and it can concentrate on generating higher level test suites.
Test suite
In software development, a test suite, less commonly known as a validation suite, is a collection of test cases that are intended to be used to test a software program to show that it has some specified set of behaviours. A test suite often contains detailed instructions or goals for each...
s for testing a software.
Definition
Test design could require all or one of:- knowledge of the software, and the business area it operates on,
- knowledge of the functionality being tested,
- knowledge of testing techniques and heuristicHeuristicHeuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical...
s. - planning skills to schedule in which order the test caseTest caseA test case in software engineering is a set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine whether an application or software system is working correctly or not. The mechanism for determining whether a software program or system has passed or failed such a test is known as a test...
s should be designed, given the effort, time and cost needed or the consequences for the most important and/or risky features.
Well designed test suites will provide for an efficient testing. The test suite will have just enough test cases to test the system, but no more. This way, there is no time lost in writing redundant test cases that would unnecessarily consume time each time they are executed. In addition, the test suite will not contain brittle or ambiguous test cases.
Automatic test design
Entire test suites or test cases exposing real bugs can be automatically generated by software using model checkingModel checking
In computer science, model checking refers to the following problem:Given a model of a system, test automatically whether this model meets a given specification....
or symbolic execution
Symbolic execution
In computer science, symbolic execution refers to the analysis of programs by tracking symbolic rather than actual values, a case of abstract interpretation. The field of symbolic simulation applies the same concept to hardware...
. Model checking can ensure all the path
Path
Path, pathway or PATH may refer to:-Path:* Course , the intended path of a vehicle over the surface of the Earth* Trail, hiking trail, footpath, or bridle path...
s of a simple program are exercised, while symbolic execution can detect bugs and generate a test case that will expose the bug when the software is run using this test case.
However, as good as automatic test design can be, it is not appropriate for all circumstances. If the complexity becomes too high, then human test design must come into play as it is far more flexible and it can concentrate on generating higher level test suites.