Module 1

Question 1

Whats the definition of testing?

Answer 1

• The process of executing a program with the internt of finding errors
• The process of exercising a system by manual or automatic means to verify that it satisfies specified requirements or to identify differences between actual and expected results

Question 2

Whats Software testing

Answer 2

Dynamic verification of the behaviour of a program on a finite set of test cases, comparing the behaviour against the expected

Question 3

7 principles of testing

Answer 3

1. Shows the presence of defects but cannot prove that there are no defects
2. Testing everything is not possible, except in trivial cases
3. Testing should occur as early as possible in the SDLC
4. Defect clustering: Most operational failures exist in a small number of modules. This is true during pre release
5. Pesticide paradox: if the same test are repeated, eventually these tests will not find new bugs. To overcome this, tests need to be reviewed regurlarly
6. Testing is done differently in different contexts. Safety-critical software is tested differently than e-commerce
7. Absence-of-error fallacy: if the system is unusable and not satisfactory for the user, finding defects and fixing them does not help

Question 4

Testing vs debugging

Answer 4

Testing: Locates and identifies bugs
Debugging: Fixes these identified bugs

Question 5

Fault error and failure

Answer 5

Fault, failures defect: Severe condition, even dangerous
Anomaly, incident,variance: unintended behaviour rather than complete failure
Problem, error and bug: Generic terms

Question 6

Why do we test?

Answer 6

-Find faults
-Get the confidence of a system
-Measure the quality of a system
-The customer required testing the system
- Assure and prepare for minimising failures
-Economical

Question 7

What’s quality assurance?

Answer 7

Systematic activities implemented in a system so that quality requirements for a product or service will be fulfilled

Question 8

What’s Software Quality Assurance?

Answer 8

Refers to the process of ensuring the quality of a software product. Subset of QA and is focused specifically on software development

Question 9

When to start testing?

Answer 9

As early as possible, becoming more cheap in the SDLC

Question 10

When to stop testing?

Answer 10

Can be hard, neverending process. Because no-one can claim a software is 100% tested. Instead, testing deadlines, completion of test case execution and completion of functional code coverage will be considered to end testing

Management decision

Question 11

Software development models (SDLC)

Answer 11

Software development life cycle (describes the activities and tasks in a software development process) that’s applied to a project will have significant impact on the testing of that software.

Test activities is highly related to software development activities
The way testing is organised must fit the development life cycle or it will fail to deliver its benifits

Question 12

Verification and validation

Answer 12

Verification: Determining whether the products of a given development phase satisfies the requirements set during the previous development phase

Validation: Evaluating the software after the development to ensure it complies with intended usage

Cases exist where IV&V. “I” stands for independent indicating a third, disinterested, party does the V&V

Question 13

Waterfall

Answer 13

-Development is split up into a number of independent steps
-starts with the study about the various development tasks and finishes with the implementation into the live environment
-Testing happens at the end, defects are detected close to implementation of the product
- Difficulties arise when we need to iterate a certain part
- Testing adds lead time because it’s implemented at the end of the development phase

Question 14

The V-Model

Answer 14

Introduced to solve problems with waterfall model

Provides guidance that testing needs to begin earlier in the development life cycle

Illustrates how V&V can be implemented into each phase of the life cycle
Testing should be done parallel to the development activities
Testers need to work alongside the developers and business analysts to produce test deliverables

One good practice: Have the testers involved as early as the review of the test basis documentation

Question 15

W-model

Answer 15

Most recent
Covers activities that’s skipped with the v-model and deals with problems not caught by v-model

The tests start when project starts and test programs should be developed parallel with the code

If any phase is ignored, quality is compromised

Question 16

Iterative life cycles

Answer 16

Cycling through small iterative life cycles of the project.

The delivery is split up into smaller deliverables with each iteration adding new functionality
An increment may be tested several times at several levels as part of the development

Subsequent testing:
- Testing new functionalities
- Regression testing of the existing functionality
- Integration testing of both new and existing parts

Regression testing becomes increasingly important in all iterations

Question 17

Rapid Application Development (RAD)

Answer 17

Parallel development of functions and subsequent integration
Quickly give the customer something to see and use to provide feedback regarding the delivery
Allows early validation of technology risks and rapid responses to changing customer requirements

Encourages active customer feedback

Question 18

Streamline

Answer 18

Streamlining in software testing refers to the process of optimising the testing process by identifying and eliminating unnecessary steps, automating repetitive tasks and focusing on the most critical aspects of the software application.

The goal of streamlining is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process while reducing the time and resources to complete it

Question 19

Static analysis

Answer 19

Type of software testing that involves examining the code or other software artefacts without actually executing the code.

It helps to identify potential defects or issues in the code such as syntax errors, security vulnerabilities and adherence to coding standards. Typically done early in the development process before the code is actually executed to identify and address issues before the become more difficult and expensive to fix

Question 20

Static analysers

Answer 20

Automates the process of static analysis

Work by parsing the code and building a model of the program’s behaviour

They can then apply various analysis techniques to detect problems. E.g. control flow analysis, data flow analysis and taint analysis

Static analysis cannot alone guarantee the absence of defects or vulnerabilities. Best used in conjunction with other testing methods such as dynamic testing and manual testing

Question 21

What’s group examination?

Answer 21

Systematic use of human capability to check and evaluate issues through reading and trying to understand the document

Question 22

Peer review

Answer 22

If colleagues provide feedback

Question 23

What are the three types of code review techniques?

Answer 23

-desk check: informal review performed by the author of the cose
- Code walkthrough: A peer review, author leads the review process and team members ask questions to find possible error against development standards
- Code inspection: most formal type, kind of static testing to avoid defect multiplication in later stages. After a module has been successfully completed (no errors), some team members are given the code to try to find errors. Each team members selects some test cases and simulates the tests by hand. The members note down their findings to discuss in a walkthrough meeting where the coder is present

Question 24

What are some guidelines of code inspection?

Answer 24

• The team performing the code walkthrough should neither be too small nor too big ~3-7 persons
• Discussion should focus on discovery of errors, not how to fix them
• Managers should not attend the meetings to avoid the feeling of being evaluated

Question 25

What’s cyclomatic complexity metric?

Answer 25

Complexity measurement of software code, calculated by counting the number of independent paths through the code, these paths are made from e.g. an if-statement which can go two ways. All paths together determines the cyclomatic complexity of a program.

The premise is that the more complex, the less maintainable it is

Question 26

What’s Data flow analysis

Answer 26

To analyse how data flows through a program.

Identifying how data is defined, used and modified as it flows through the program

Question 27

What do we need to know before testing?

Answer 27

• What we’re trying to test
• what are the inputs
• Output results from the inputs
• How we get ready to run the tests

On top of this, it’s important to know the test conditions, test procedures and test cases

Question 28

Explain the two types of formalities of test documentation

Answer 28

Formal testing: Have a well controlled documentation addressing all details of a test

Informal testing: have no documentation or only notes kept by individual testers, they do though have a plan for what to test and what they expect as output

IRL: Combined/between, depends on the context of the work

Question 29

What are 4 things in test analysis?

Answer 29

Test analysis: looking at something that can be used to derive test information

Test basis: The base of the test cases, we can look at it to see what could be tested

Test condition: Simply something we could test

Traceability: Linking the test conditions back to their sources on the test basis

Question 30

What are two testing techniques

Answer 30

Static testing techniques: Does not execute the code being examined and are generally used before any tests are executed

Dynamic testing techniques: The code is executed to demonstrate the results of running the test cases

Question 31

Whats functional testing?

Answer 31

Examining and testing What a program does

Question 32

Whats non-functional testing?

Answer 32

Testing how Well the system does works

Performed on all test levels

Question 33

Whats structural testing?

Answer 33

White-box

Tests code structure and the inteded system flow

E.g. Testing the statements in the code

Question 34

Whats regression testing?

Answer 34

Testing that the new functionality doesnt impact its correctness