Software Testing and Analysis

Ultimate goal for software testing

Quality Assurance

V & V goals
Verification and validation should establish confidence that the software is fit for purpose This does NOT mean completely free of defects Rather, it must be good enough for its intended use and the type of use will determine the degree of confidence that is needed

Verification vs. validation

Verification: The software should conform to its specification (Are we building the product right?) Validation: The software should do what the user really requires (Are we building the right product?)

Classical lifecycle model

Requirements Phase Specification Phase (Analysis) Planning Phase Design Phase Implementation Phase Integration and Testing Maintenance Retirement

Cost to fix faults

60* to 100*

1.5* to 6*
Cost 1*

Definition

Development

Post Release

The V & V process

Is a whole life-cycle process - V & V must be applied at each stage in the software process. Has two principal objectives
The discovery of defects in a system The assessment of whether or not the system is usable in an operational situation.

Sequential model
Requireme nts Testing/Veri Specificatio fy n Testing/Veri Planning fy Testing/Veri Maintenance

fyDesign Testing/Veri fy Implementa tion Testing/Veri Integration fy Testing/Veri fy

Operations Mode

Static and dynamic verification

Software inspections and walkthroughs - Concerned with analysis of the static system representation to discover problems (static verification) Software testing - Concerned with exercising and observing product behaviour (dynamic verification)
The system is executed with test data and its operational behaviour is observed

Static and dynamic V&V

Static verification

Requirements specification

High-level design

Formal specification

Detailed design

Program

Prototype

Dynamic validation

V & V planning
Careful planning is required to get the most out of testing and inspection processes Planning should start early in the development process The plan should identify the balance between static verification and testing Test planning is about defining standards for the testing process rather than describing product tests

The V-model of development

Requir ements specification

System specification

System design

Detailed design

Acceptance test plan

System integration test plan

Sub-system integration test plan

Module and unit code and tess

Service

Acceptance test

System integration test

Sub-system integration test

The structure of a software test plan

The testing process Requirements traceability Tested items Testing schedule Test recording procedures Hardware and software requirements Constraints

Walkthroughs
Informal examination of a product (document) Made up of:
developers client next phase developers Software Quality Assurance group leader

Produces:
list of items not understood list of items thought to be incorrect

Software inspections
Involve people examining the source representation with the aim of discovering anomalies and defects Do not require execution of a system so may be used before implementation May be applied to any representation of the system (requirements, design, test data, etc.) Very effective technique for discovering errors

Inspection success
Many different defects may be discovered in a single inspection. In testing, one defect may mask another so several executions are required The reuse domain and programming knowledge so reviewers are likely to have seen the types of error that commonly arise

Inspections and testing

Inspections and testing are complementary and not opposing verification techniques Both should be used during the V & V process Inspections can check conformance with a specification but not conformance with the customers real requirements Inspections cannot check non-functional characteristics such as performance, usability, etc.

Program inspections
Formalised approach to document reviews Intended explicitly for defect DETECTION (not correction) Defects may be logical errors, anomalies in the code that might indicate an erroneous condition (e.g. an un-initialised variable) or non-compliance with standards

Inspection pre-conditions
A precise specification must be available Team members must be familiar with the organisation standards Syntactically correct code must be available An error checklist should be prepared Management must accept that inspection will increase costs early in the software process Management must not use inspections for staff appraisal

Inspection procedure
System overview presented to inspection team Code and associated documents are distributed to inspection team in advance Inspection takes place and discovered errors are noted Modifications are made to repair discovered errors Re-inspection may or may not be required

Inspection teams
Made up of at least 4 members Author of the code being inspected Inspector who finds errors, omissions and inconsistencies Reader who reads the code to the team Moderator who chairs the meeting and notes discovered errors Other roles are Scribe and Chief moderator

Inspection checklists
Checklist of common errors should be used to drive the inspection Error checklist is programming language dependent The 'weaker' the type checking, the larger the checklist Examples: Initialization, Constant naming, loop termination, array bounds, etc.

Inspection rate
500 statements/hour during overview 125 source statement/hour during individual preparation 90-125 statements/hour can be inspected Inspection is therefore an expensive process Inspecting 500 lines costs about 40 man/hours effort (@ $50/hr = $2000!!!)

Program testing
Can reveal the presence of errors NOT their absence A successful test is a test which discovers one or more errors The only validation technique for non-functional requirements Should be used in conjunction with static verification to provide full V&V coverage

Execution based testing

Program testing can be a very effective way to show the presents of bugs but is hopelessly inadequate for showing their absence [Dijkstra]

Fault: bug incorrect piece of code Failure: result of a fault Error: mistake made by the programmer/developer

Testing and debugging

Defect testing and debugging are distinct processes Verification and validation is concerned with establishing the existence of defects in a program Debugging is concerned with locating and repairing these errors Debugging involves formulating a hypothesis about program behaviour then testing these hypotheses to find the system error

The debugging process

Test results

Specification

Test cases

Locate error

Design error repair

Repair error

Re-test program

Testing phases

Component testing Software developer

Integration testing Independent testing team

Testing phases
Component testing
Testing of individual program components Usually the responsibility of the component developer (except sometimes for critical systems) Tests are derived from the developers experience

Integration testing
Testing of groups of components integrated to create a system or sub-system The responsibility of an independent testing team Tests are based on a system specification

Testing priorities
Only exhaustive testing can show a program is free from defects. However, exhaustive testing is impossible Tests should exercise a system's capabilities rather than its components Testing old capabilities is more important than testing new capabilities Testing typical situations is more important than boundary value cases

Test data and test cases

Test data Inputs which have been devised to test the system Test cases Inputs to test the system and the predicted outputs from these inputs if the system operates according to its specification

Development of test cases

Test cases and test scenarios comprise much of a software systems testware. Black box test cases are developed by domain analysis and examination of the system requirements and specification. Glass box test cases are developed by examining the behavior of the source code.

The defect testing process

Test cases Design test cases

Test data

Test results

Test reports

Prepare test data

Run program with test data

Compare results to test cases

Methods of testing
Test to specification:
Black box, Data driven Functional testing Code is ignored: only use specification document to develop test cases

Test to code:
Glass box/White box Logic driven testing Ignore specification and only examine the code.

Can you guarantee a program is correct?

This is called the Halting Problem

Write a program to test if any given program is correct. The output is correct or incorrect. Test this program on itself. If output is incorrect, then how do you know the output is correct?
Conundrum, Dilemma, or Contradiction?

Black-box testing
An approach to testing where the program is considered as a black-box The program test cases are based on the system specification Test planning can begin early in the software process

Black-box testing
I n p u t s c a u s i n g a n o m a l o u s

Input test data

I
e

Output test results

Oe

Pairing down test cases

Use methods that take advantage of symmetries, data equivalencies, and independencies to reduce the number of necessary test cases.
Equivalence Testing Boundary Value Analysis

Determine the ranges of working system Develop equivalence classes of test cases Examine the boundaries of these classes carefully

Equivalence partitioning
Input data and output results often fall into different classes where all members of a class are related Each of these classes is an equivalence partition where the program behaves in an equivalent way for each class member Test cases should be chosen from each partition

Equivalence partitioning

Invalid inputs

Valid inputs

System

Outputs

Boundary value testing

Partition system inputs and outputs into equivalence sets
If input is a 5-digit integer between 10,000 and 99,999, equivalence partitions are < 10,000, 10,000 - 99, 999 and > 10, 000

Choose test cases at the boundary of these sets

00000, 09999, 10000, 99999, 10001

Equivalence partitions
3 4 7 11 10

Less than 4

Between 4 and 10

More than 10

Number of input values 9999 10000 50000 100000 99999

Less than 10000 Input values

Between 10000 and 99999

More than 99999

Search routine specification

procedure Search (Key : ELEM ; T: ELEM_ARRAY; Found : in out BOOLEAN; L: in out ELEM_INDEX) ; Pre-condition -- the array has at least one element TFIRST <= TLAST Post-condition -- the element is found and is referenced by L ( Found and T (L) = Key) or -- the element is not in the array ( not Found and not (exists i, TFIRST >= i <= TLAST, T (i) = Key ))

Search routine - input partitions

Inputs which conform to the pre-conditions Inputs where a pre-condition does not hold Inputs where the key element is a member of the array Inputs where the key element is not a member of the array

Testing guidelines - sequences

Test software with sequences which have only a single value Use sequences of different sizes in different tests Derive tests so that the first, middle and last elements of the sequence are accessed Test with sequences of zero length

Search routine - input partitions

Element In sequence Not in sequence First element in sequence Last element in sequence Middle element in sequence Not in sequence Key (Key) 17 0 17 45 23 25 Output (Found, L) true, 1 false, ?? true, 1 true, 7 true, 4 false, ??

ue ue n 1 value n 1 value n 1 value n 1 value

quence ( T)

23 31, 30, 16, 45 23, 29, 41, 38 33, 38

Sorting example
Example: sort (lst, n)
Sort a list of numbers The list is between 2 and 1000 elements

Domains:
The list has some item type (of little concern) n is an integer value (sub-range)

Equivalence classes;
n<2 n > 1000 2 <= n <= 1000

Sorting example
What do you test? Not all cases of integers Not all cases of positive integers Not all cases between 1 and 1001

Highest payoff for detecting faults is to test around the boundaries of equivalence classes. Test n=1, n=2, n=1000, n=1001, and say n= 10 Five tests versus 1000.

White-box testing
Sometime called structural testing or glass-box testing Derivation of test cases according to program structure Knowledge of the program is used to identify additional test cases Objective is to exercise all program statements (not all path combinations)

Types of structural testing

Statement coverage Test cases which will execute every statement at least once. Tools exist for help No guarantee that all branches are properly tested. Loop exit?

Branch coverage
All branches are tested once

Path coverage - Restriction of type of paths:

Linear code sequences Definition/Use checking (all definition/use paths) Can locate dead code

White-box testing
Test data

Tests

Derives Component code Test outputs

White box testing - binary search example

int search ( int key, int [] elemArray) { int bottom = 0; int top = elemArray.length - 1; int mid; int result = -1; while ( bottom <= top ) { mid = (top + bottom) / 2; if (elemArray [mid] == key) { result = mid; return result; } // if part else { if (elemArray [mid] < key) bottom = mid + 1; else top = mid - 1; } } //while loop return result; } // search

Binary search equivalence partitions

Pre-conditions satisfied, key element in array Pre-conditions satisfied, key element not in array Pre-conditions unsatisfied, key element in array Pre-conditions unsatisfied, key element not in array Input array has a single value Input array has an even number of values Input array has an odd number of values

Binary search equivalence partitions

Equivalence class boundaries

Elements < Mid

Elements > Mid

Mid-point

Binary search - test cases

Input array (T) 17 17 17, 21, 23, 29 9, 16, 18, 30, 31, 41, 45 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 38, 41 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 33, 38 12, 18, 21, 23, 32 21, 23, 29, 33, 38

Key (Key) 17 0 17 45 23 21 23 25

Output ( Found, L) true, 1 false, ?? true, 1 true, 7 true, 4 true, 3 true, 4 false, ??

Path testing
The objective of path testing is to ensure that the set of test cases is such that each path through the program is executed at least once The starting point for path testing is a program flow graph that shows nodes representing program decisions and arcs representing the flow of control Statements with conditions are therefore nodes in the flow graph

Program flow graphs

Describes the program control flow. Each branch is shown as a separate path and loops are shown by arrows looping back to the loop condition node Used as a basis for computing the cyclomatic complexity Cyclomatic complexity = Number of edges Number of nodes +2

Cyclomatic complexity
The number of tests to test all control statements equals the cyclomatic complexity Cyclomatic complexity equals number of conditions in a program Useful if used with care. Does not imply adequacy of testing Although all paths are executed, all combinations of paths are not executed

Binary search flow graph

while bottom < = top

bottom > top

if (elemArray [mid] == key

8 5 9

(if (elemArray [mid]< key 6

Independent paths 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 2, 8, 9 Test cases should be derived so that all of these paths are executed A dynamic program analyser may be used to check that paths have been executed

Feasibility
Pure black box testing (specification) is realistically impossible because there are (in general) too many test cases to consider. Pure testing to code requires a test of every possible path in a flow chart. This is also (in general) infeasible. Also every path does not guarantee correctness. Normally, a combination of Black box and Glass box testing is done.

Integration testing
Tests complete systems or subsystems composed of integrated components Integration testing should be black-box testing with tests derived from the specification Main difficulty is localising errors Incremental integration testing reduces this problem

Incremental integration testing

A A T1 A T2 B T3 C T4 D Test sequence 1 Test sequence 2 Test sequence 3 T5 B T3 C T4 T2 B T3 T1 T2 T1

Approaches to integration testing

Top-down testing
Start with high-level system and integrate from the top-down replacing individual components by stubs where appropriate

Bottom-up testing
Integrate individual components in levels until the complete system is created

In practice, most integration involves a combination of these strategies

Top-down testing
Level 1 Testing sequence Level 1 . ..

Level 2 Le vel 2 stubs

Level 2

Le vel 2

Level 2

Le vel 3 stubs

Bottom-up testing

Test drivers Level N Level N Le vel N Level N Level N Testing sequence

Test drivers

Level N 1

Level N 1

Level N 1

Software testing metrics

Defects rates Errors rates Number of errors Number of errors found per person hours expended Measured by:
individual module during development

Errors should be categorized by origin, type, cost

More metrics
Direct measures - cost, effort, LOC, etc. Indirect Measures - functionality, quality, complexity, reliability, maintainability Size Oriented:
Lines of code - LOC Effort - person months errors/KLOC defects/KLOC cost/KLOC