Software Testing

Goal

  • Validate and verify the behavior of software under development
    • Validation :arrow_right: Errors of designs
    • Verification :arrow_right: Errors of implementations

Methods

  • Static testing: Testing without its execution
    • Code review, Mathematical proof
  • Dynamic testing: Testing with its execution
    • The behavior of software satisfies its specifications
    • The software does not cause any error even if its behavior is not defined by specifications

Terminologies

Test case

  • A pair of inputs and expected outputs of software under test

Test suite

  • A set of test cases

Classification of testing with phase

  • Unit testing: Verify the code implementation for each functions
  • Integration testing: Verify the system is properly built on the design
  • System testing: Verify the system meets speficications
  • Acceptance testing: Verify the system meets requirements of users

Automatic Testing

What is?

  • A framework to execute software testing
    • Execute testing codes for software under test
    • Execute defined inputs and compare the output with the expected one
  • Notice that it is not the automatic test case generation

Why?

  • To reduce the workload on executing and checking the implements
  • Useful for regression testing and TDD

Test for Golang

  • Change the file hello.go 
package main

func getHello() string {
    return "Hello world"
}

Note

  • Remove the main function
  • Define the function that returns a string
  • Create a file typing test codes; hello_test.go 
package main

import (
    "testing"
)

func TestGetHello(t *testing.T) {
    expected := "Hello world!"
    result := getHello()
    if expected != result {
        t.Errorf("Test fail expected: %s, result: %s\n", expected, result)
    }
}
  • Execute the following command in Terminal
$ go test -v
=== RUN   TestGetHello
    hello_test.go:11: Test fail expected: Hello world!, result: Hello world
--- FAIL: TestGetHello (0.00s)
FAIL
exit status 1
FAIL    _/home/ec2-user/environment/example     0.002s

The standard testing framework

  • Test file name: xxx_test.go
  • In the test file, The signature of test function should be func TestXxxx(t *testing.T)
  • The package name is usually set as the same as the package in which functions under test belong to.
  • Implement the code to judge whether the results of functions under test are right or not. If it finds an error, use t.Errorf to display the error message.

Summary

  • Software testing is a process to validate and verify the behavior of software under development.
  • It can be classified into static testing and dynamic testing.
  • Automatic testing is a framework to execute software testing.