Testing is the process of executing a program to find errors. To make our software perform well, it should be error-free. If testing is done successfully, it will remove all the mistakes from the software.
Unit Testing
Unit testing is a method of testing individual units or components of a software application. Developers typically do it and ensure the respective software teams work as intended. Unit tests are usually automated and are designed to test specific parts of the code, such as a particular function or method. Unit testing is done at the lowest level of the software development process, where individual code units are tested in isolation.
Advantages of Unit Testing:
- It helps to identify bugs early in the development process before they become more complex and expensive to fix.
- It helps to ensure that changes to the code refrain from introducing new bugs.
- It makes the code more modular and easier to understand and maintain.
- It helps to improve the overall quality and reliability of the software.
Integration Testing:
Integration testing is a method of testing how different units or components of a software application interact. It identifies and resolves any issues arising when other software units are combined. Integration testing is typically done after unit testing and before functional testing and is used to verify that the different branches of the software work together as intended.
Different Ways of Performing Integration Testing: Other ways are discussed below.
- Top-down integration testing: It starts with the highest-level modules and differentiates them from lower-level modules.
- Bottom-up integration testing begins with the lowest-level modules and integrates them with higher-level modules.
- Big-Bang integration testing: It combines and incorporates all the modules simultaneously.
- Incremental integration testing: It integrates the modules in small groups, testing each group as it is added.
Advantages of Integrating Testing:
- It helps to identify and resolve issues that may arise when different software units are combined.
- It helps to ensure that the different software units work together as intended.
- It helps to improve the overall reliability and stability of the software.
- It’s important to remember that Integration testing is essential for complex systems where different components are integrated.
- As with unit testing, integration testing is only one aspect of software testing, and it should be used in combination with other types of testing, such as unit testing, functional testing, and acceptance testing, to ensure that the software meets the needs of its users.
Regression Testing:
Regression testing is a method used to ensure that changes made to the software do not introduce new bugs or cause existing functionality to break. It is typically done after changes to the code, such as bug fixes or new features, and is used to verify that the software still works as intended.
Regression testing can be performed in different ways, such as:
- Retesting involves testing the entire application or specific functionality affected by the changes.
- Re–execution: This consists of running a previously executed test suite to ensure that the changes did not break any existing functionality.
- Comparison: This consists of comparing the software’s current version with a previous version to ensure the changes did not break any existing functionality.
Smoke Testing:
Smoke Testing is done to make sure that the software under testing is ready or stable for further testing.
It is called a smoke test, as the testing of an initial pass is done to Alpha Testing.
Alpha testing:
Alpha Testing is a type of validation testing. This type of acceptance testing is done before the product is released to customers. QA people typically do it. Check if it did not catch fire or smoke in the initial switch-on.
Beta Testing:
The beta test is conducted at one or more customer sites by the end-user of the software. This version is released for a limited number of users for testing in a real-time environment.
System Testing:
System Testing is carried out on the whole system in either system requirement specifications or functional requirement specifications or in the context of both. The software is tested to work fine for the different operating systems. It is covered under the black box testing technique. We focus on the required input and output without focusing on internal work. In this, we have security testing, recovery testing, stress testing, and performance testing.
Object-Oriented Testing:
Object-oriented testing combines various testing techniques that help verify and validate object-oriented software. This testing is done in the following manner:
- Testing of Requirements,
- Design and Analysis of Testing,
- Testing of Code,
- Integration testing,
- System testing,
- User Testing.
Stress Testing:
In Stress Testing, we give unfavorable conditions to the system and check how it performs in those conditions.
Acceptance Testing:
The customers do acceptance testing to check whether the delivered products perform the desired tasks, as stated in the requirements. We use Object-Oriented Testing for discussing test plans and for executing the projects.Testing method that evaluates the entire application flow from start to finish. It ensures all components work as expected and the software application functions correctly in real-world scenarios.
End to End Testing:
In End-to-End Testing, the software is tested from the end user’s prospect affects a real user scenario, including the user interface, backend services, databases, and network communication. End testing aims to validate the application’s overall behavior, functionality, reliability, performance, and security.
End-to-end testing aims to identify defects or issues that may occur when different application parts interact by testing the entire system. End-to-End testing ensures all components work together smoothly to meet user expectations. End to End testing is usually performed after integration testing, which tests individual modules, and before user acceptance testing, which ensures that the application meets the user’s requirements.
Benefits of End-to-End Testing:
- Improved quality assurance: End-to-end testing can ensure that all software application parts work together correctly and meet their intended business requirements.
- Increased confidence in the software: E2E Testing can increase the belief that the software will function as expected in real-world scenarios, assuring stakeholders that the application is reliable and stable
- Faster detection of defects: E2E testing can help detect defects early in the development cycle, allowing developers to fix the issues before they become more complex and costly
- Reduced costs: End-to-end testing can help reduce the costs associated with defects and bugs detected late in the development cycle or after the application has been deployed
- Better alignment with business requirements: End-to-end testing can help ensure that the application meets the business requirements, making it more likely that the application will be accepted by its intended users
- More efficient testing process: End-to-end testing can help streamline the testing process by testing the application from a user’s perspective rather than trying individual components in isolation, making it easier to identify and address issues that may arise
Steps to Perform End-to-End Testing:
The steps below are required to initiate and complete any End-to-end test.
- Analyze requirements. Have a clear idea of how the app is supposed to work in every aspect.
- Set up a test environment in alignment with all the requirements.
- Analyze software and hardware requirements.
- List down how every system needs to respond.
- List down testing methods required to test these responses. Include clear descriptions of each test’s standards (language, tools, etc.).
- Design test cases
- Run tests, study, and save results.
End-to-End Testing Example:
Let’s say testers have to verify the functioning of a Gmail account. The following features have to be tested:
- Type the URL into the address bar to launch the Gmail login page.
- Log into the account with valid credentials.
- Access Inbox. Open Read and Unread emails.
- Compose a new email.
- Reply to and forward an existing email.
- Open the Sent Items folder. Check emails there.
- Open the Spam folder. Check emails there.
- Log out of Gmail by clicking ‘logout.’
Three Types of Activities in End to End Testing:
1. User Functions
To build user functions, do the following:
- List the features of the software and its interconnected sub-systems.
- For each function, track and record all actions performed. Do the same for all input and output data.
- Identify all relations between user functions.
- Establish if each user function is independent or reusable.
2. Conditions
To build conditions based on user functions, decide a set of requirements for every user function. This could include timing, data conditions, etc., factors affecting user functions.
3. Test Cases
To build test cases for End to End Testing, keep the following in mind:
- Create multiple test cases to test every functionality of user functions.
- Assign at least a single, separate test case to every condition.
In this Software Testing Tutorial, we will learn about the types of software testing. There are many types of testing and we will understand some of the key testing types in software testing, for example, unit testing, integration testing, system testing, regression testing, smoke testing, sanity testing and lot more.
Software Testing Types can be broadly categorized in two categories, functional testing and non functional testing.
