White box testing uses extensive knowledge of an application’s internals to develop highly targeted test cases. Examples of tests that might be performed during white box testing include:
- Path Checking: White box testing can be used to explore the various execution paths within an application to ensure that all conditional statements are correct, necessary, and efficient.
- Output Validation: This enumerates the various potential inputs to a function and ensures that each produces the expected result.
- Security Testing: Static code analysis and other white box testing techniques are used to identify potential vulnerabilities within an application and validate that it follows secure development best practices.
- Loop Testing: Tests the loops within an application to ensure they are correct, efficient, and adequately manage the variables within their scope.
- Data Flow Testing: Tracks variables throughout the execution paths of a program to ensure that variables are declared, initialized, used, and properly manipulated.
Types Of White Box Testing
White box testing can be performed for a few different purposes. The three types of white box testing are:
- Unit Testing: Unit testing is designed to ensure that each component or function of an application works properly. This helps ensure the application meets design requirements throughout the development process.
- Integration Testing: Integration testing focuses on the interfaces between the various components within an application. Performed after unit testing, it ensures that not only does each component work well in isolation but also that they can work together effectively.
- Regression Testing: Changes can break things within an application. Regression testing ensures that the code still passes existing test cases after functionality or security updates are made to an application.
White Box Testing Techniques
One of the main advantages of white box testing is that it makes it possible to ensure that every aspect of an application is tested. White box testing can use the following techniques:
- Statement Coverage: Statement coverage testing ensures that every line of code within an application is tested by at least one test case. Statement coverage testing can help to identify if portions of the code are unused or unreachable, which can be caused by programming errors, updates, etc. Identifying this dead code enables developers to fix incorrect conditional statements or remove redundant code to improve application performance and security.
- Branch Coverage: Conditional statements create branches within an application’s execution code, as different inputs can follow different execution paths. Branch coverage testing ensures that every branch within an application is covered by unit testing. This ensures that even little-used code paths are correctly validated.
- Path Coverage: An execution path describes the sequence of instructions that can be executed from when an application starts to where it terminates. Path coverage testing ensures that use cases cover every execution path through an application. This helps ensure that all execution paths are functional, efficient, and necessary.
White-box testing is typically conducted by software developers or specialized testers who deeply understand the codebase. It complements black-box testing by providing a more thorough examination of the software’s internal workings, helping to uncover issues that may not be apparent through functional testing alone. Both white-box and black-box testing have their strengths and limitations, and they are often used in combination to achieve comprehensive test coverage and ensure the software’s quality and reliability.
