Quality Assurance and Software testing

Error - Fault - Failure

2009-03-19T04:05:00.003Z

A Person makes an error--->Creates a fault in software --->Causes a failure in operation

Data Flow Testing

2009-03-19T03:58:00.001Z

Testing in which test cases are based on variable usage within the code

Decision Table Testing

2008-11-15T07:01:00.005Z

Decision tables are used to document complex business rules that a system must implement.

1)Conditions represent various input conditions.
2)Actions are the processes that should be executed depending on the various combinations of input conditions.
3)Each of the rules defines a unique combination of conditions that result in the execution("firing") of the actions associated with that rule.

What is mean by release notes?

2008-11-11T17:20:00.001Z

It's a document released along with the product which explains about the product. It also contains about the bugs that are in deferred status.

What is bidirectional traceability?

2008-11-10T13:39:00.001Z

Bidirectional traceability needs to be implemented both forward and backward (i.e., from requirements to end products and from end product back to requirements).
When the requirements are managed well, traceability can be established from the source requirement to its lower level requirements and from the lower level requirements back to their source. Such bidirectional traceability helps determine that all source requirements have been completely addressed and that all lower level requirements can be traced to a valid source.

Test Techniques-Test Methodology

2008-11-10T13:25:00.001Z

Testing techniques is a way testing technique (security testing,functional testing etc) to be applied on project and and it will inform to testers by test lead.

Test methodology or test strategy is a document prepared by Test Manager and it contains an approach to be followed by testing team during testing (egg: test factors, scope, use of testing tools for the project etc)

Networking Concepts

2008-09-10T04:02:00.004+01:00

ISO/OSI Network Model:
The standard model for networking protocols and distributed applications is the International Standard Organization's Open System Interconnect (ISO/OSI) model
1.Physical Layer
2.Data Link Layer
3.Network
4.Transport
5.Session
6.Presentation
7.Application

DMZ : Short for demilitarized zone, a computer or small subnetwork that sits between a trusted internal network, such as a corporate private LAN, and an untrusted external network, such as the public Internet.

The purpose of a DMZ is to add an additional layer of security to an organization's Local Area Network (LAN); an external attacker only has access to equipment in the DMZ, rather than the whole of the network

Networking Devices:
Repeater: A Repeater is a network device that is used to boost or regenerate or replicate a signal. Repeaters are used in transmission systems to regenerate analog or digital signals distorted by transmission loss

Hub: A Common connection point for devices in a network. Hubs are commonly used to connect segments of a LAN. A hub contains multiple ports.

Bridge: A Bridge is a network device that is typically used to connect 2 network segments together.i.e A device that connects two local-area networks (LANs), or two segments of the same LAN that use the same protocol, such as Ethernet or Token-Ring.

Gateway: A gateway is a network device that acts as an entrance to another network.Gateways are often used to restrict unauthorized traffic from passing through and / or for translating data from one network protocol to another (Ex: from ethernet to token ring)

Switches: A device that filters and forwards packets between LAN segments

Router: A router is a device that is used to connect 2 or more networks. The router tries to make intelligent decisions about which way to forward network traffic that it has received.

Brouter : A Brouter is a device that combines the features of a bridge with that of a brouter

Agile Testing

2008-08-28T16:43:00.000+01:00

Agile testing is a software testing practice that follows the statutes of the agile manifesto, treating software development as the customer of testing.

Agile testing involves testing from the customer perspective as early as possible, testing early and often as code becomes available and stable enough from module/unit level testing.

Since working increments of the software is released very often in agile software development there is also a need to test often. This is often done by using automated acceptance testing to minimize the amount of manual labor. Doing only manual testing in agile development would likely result in either buggy software or slipping schedules because it would most often not be possible to test the whole software manually before every release.

Internationalization and localization

2008-08-28T16:13:00.004+01:00

Internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages and regional differences.

Internationalization is the process of designing a software application so that it can be adapted to various languages and regions without engineering changes.Localization is the process of adapting software for a specific region or language by adding locale-specific components and translating text.

Due to their length, the terms are frequently abbreviated to i18n and L10n respectively. Some companies, like Microsoft and IBM, use the term globalization for the combination of internationalization and localization.Globalization can also be abbreviated to just g11n.

Accessibility Testing

2008-08-26T14:41:00.002+01:00

Accessibility testing involves measuring the ease with which blind and disabled users can complete common tasks on your website.

Guidelines
1) Make sure that fonts are visible
2) Application should be navigatable by using the keyboard keys
3) Colours should be contrasting

Cross-site scripting(XSS)

2008-08-26T05:55:00.001+01:00

XSS is a security breach that takes advantage of dynamically generated Web pages. In an XSS attack, a Web application is sent with a script that activates when it is read by an unsuspecting user’s browser or by an application that has not protected itself against cross-site scripting. Because dynamic Web sites rely on user input, a malicious user can input malicious script into the page by hiding it within legitimate requests. Common exploitations include search engine boxes, online forums and public-accessed blogs. Once XSS has been launched, the attacker can change user settings, hijack accounts, poison cookies with malicious code, expose SSL connections, access restricted sites and even launch false advertisements. The simplest way to avoid XSS is to add code to a Web application that causes the dynamic input to ignore certain command tags.

Common languages used for XSS include JavaScript, VBScript, HTML, Perl, C++, ActiveX and Flash.

Cross-site scripting also is referred to as malicious tagging and sometimes abbreviated as CSS, though CSS is more commonly used as an abbreviation for cascading style sheets.

SQL Injection

2008-08-25T06:48:00.001+01:00

A form of attack on a database-driven Web site in which the attacker executes unauthorized SQL commands by taking advantage of insecure code on a system connected to the Internet, bypassing the firewall. SQL injection attacks are used to steal information from a database from which the data would normally not be available and/or to gain access to an organization’s host computers through the computer that is hosting the database.

SQL injection attacks typically are easy to avoid by ensuring that a system has strong input validation

Security Testing

2008-08-24T16:10:00.002+01:00

This is testing concerned with ensuring that systems are secure from unauthorized access.Tests can include testing passwords or deliberately attempting to break the database.
The six basic security concepts that need to be covered by security testing are: confidentiality, integrity, authentication, authorisation, availability and non-repudiation.
Confidentiality:A security measure which protects against the disclosure of information to parties other than the intended recipient that is by no means the only way of ensuring.
Integrity:A measure intended to allow the receiver to determine that the information which it receives has not been altered in transit or by other than the originator of the information.
Authentication:
Authentication is how you identify yourself to the computer.The goal behind is to verify that user is actually who they say they are.
Authorization:
Once the system knows who the user is through authetication,authorization is how the system decides what the user can do permissions etc.
Availability: Information must be kept available to authorized persons when they need it. Also authority to operate
Non-repudiation:A measure intended to prevent the later denial that an action happened, or a communication that took place etc. In communication terms this often involves the interchange of authentication information combined with some form of provable time stamp.

ISEB Terminology

2008-08-24T06:37:00.007+01:00

Static Testing:
Analysis of a program carried out without executing the program

Dynamic Testing:
The process of evaluating a system or component based upon its behaviour during execution.

Error:
A human action producing an incorrect result .
When programmers make errors, they introduce faults to program code

Fault:
A manifestation of human error in software .
Faults may be caused by requirements, design or coding errors.
Software faults are static - they are characteristics of the code they exist in.

Failure:
A deviation of the software from its expected delivery or service.
A failure occurs when software does the 'wrong' thing .

BS7925-1:
British Standard for Software Testing Terminology.

BS7925-2:
British Standard for Comonent Testing.

Exhaustive Testing:
It is considered impossible to test anything exhaustively as it requires unrealistic time and/ or resources.

Oracle:

An existing system (for a benchmark)
A specification
Specialised knowledge of an individual

Oracle Assumption:
An "Oracle Assumption" is that tester can routinely identify the correct outcome of a test.

Recovery testing:
Testing aimed at verifying the system's ability to recover from varying degrees of failure.

Structured basis testing:
A test case design technique in which test cases are derived from the code logic to achieve 100% branch coverage.

Requirements based testing:
In this type of testing test cases may be derived from the user requirement specification and system requirement specification.

Business process based testing:
In this type of testing test cases may be based on expected user profiles(for example use cases or scenarios)

Incidents :
Any significant unplanned event that occurs during testing that requires subsequent investigation and/or correction.
Incidents are raised when expected results differ from actual test results.Incidents may also be raised against documentation.

Recovery Testing:
Recovery testing is the activity of testing how well the software is able to recover from crashes, hardware failures and other similar problems.

Recovery testing is the forced failure of the software in a variety of ways to verify that recovery is properly performed. Recovery testing should not be confused with Reliability testing, which is tries to discover the point at which failure occurs.

Examples of recovery testing:

1)While the application running, suddenly restart the computer and after that check the validness of application's data integrity;
2)While application receives data from the network, unplug and then in some time plug-in the cable, and analyze the application ability to continue receiving of data from that point, when network connection disappeared;
3)To restart the system while the browser will have definite number of sessions and after rebooting check, that it is able to recover all of them

Exploratory Testing
Exploratory testing involves simultaneous learning, test design and test execution

Use Case

2008-08-14T13:13:00.006+01:00

A Use Case is a document that describes the user action and system response for a particular functionality. The two main components of a use case diagram are use cases and actors.

There are 3 relationships in use case
1)Include: one use case (the base use case) includes the functionality of another use case (the inclusion use case).
2)Extend:one use case (extension) extends the behavior of another use case (base).
3)Generalization:one model element (the child) is based on another model element (the parent)

State Transition Testing

2008-08-11T20:44:00.001+01:00

State Transition Testing:Technique in which the states of a system are fist identified and then test cases are written to test the triggers to cause a transition from one condition to another state.

Baseline document

2008-08-10T22:36:00.001+01:00

A baseline document is a document which has covered all the details and went through a "walkthrough". Once a document is baselined it cannot be changed unless there is a change request has been approved.
"Baseline document is a document which is formally reviewed and agreed upon"

Software Testing Life Cycle

2008-08-10T22:34:00.001+01:00

1) Test Plan Preparation
2) Test Case Preparation
3) Test Case Execution
4) Bug Analysis
5) Bug Reporting
6) Bug Tracking and Closure

Severity and Priority

2008-08-10T22:02:00.004+01:00

Severity is realted to functionality.Priority is related to Customer/Client.
Priority means how urgently bug is needed to fix Severity means how badly it harms the system .
Priority tells how Important the bug is. Severity tells how bad the bug is.
Severity is constant and Priority may change according to schedule.
Severity is marked by the Test engineer and Priority is marked by devlopment team lead or Business Analyst or Project Manager.
Severity is categorized into : 1) Critical 2) Major 3)Minor 4)Cosmetic 5)Suggestion
Priority is categorized into : 1)Immediate 2)At the Earliest 3)Normal 4) Later
or can be classified as 1)P0 2)P1 3)P2 4)P3

Configuration Management

2008-08-10T21:52:00.002+01:00

Configuration management(CM) is the process of tracking and controlling changes in software.Examples of CM tools: Microsoft Visual Source Safe,, Clear Case, Star Team

Traditional Configuration management has four elements:
1)Configuration identification
2)Configuration change control (or change management)
3)Configuration status accounting
4)Configuration verification and auditing

Difference between Bug & Defect

2008-08-10T07:43:00.000+01:00

Bug:
Any Missing functionality or any action that is performed by the system which is not supposed to be performed is a Bug.
“Is an error found BEFORE the application goes into production?”
Any of the following may be the reason for birth of Bug
1. Wrong functionality
2. Missing functionality
3. Extra or unwanted functionality

Defect:
A defect is a variance from the desired attribute of a system or application.
“Is an error found AFTER the application goes into production?”
Defect will be commonly categorized into two types:
1. Defect from product Specification
2. Variance from customer/user expectation

Why does software has bugs

2008-08-08T15:20:00.001+01:00

1)Miscommunication
2)Software Complexity
3)Programming errors
4)Change Requirements
5)Time pressures
6)Egos

Software development process

2008-08-08T15:15:00.003+01:00

Common problems:
1)Inadequate requirements from the Client
2)Unrealistic schedules
3)Insufficient testing
4)Given another work under the existing process
5)Miscommunication
Solutions:
1)Basic Requirements
2)Schedule should be realistic
3)Adequate testing
4)Proper study on initial requirements
5)Communication

Defect Leakage

2008-08-07T14:17:00.001+01:00

Defect leakage occurs at the Customer or the End user side after the application delivery. After the release of the application to the client, if the end user gets any type of defects by using that application then it is called as Defect leakage. This Defect Leakage is also called as Bug Leak.

Software Testing 10 Rules

2008-08-06T19:08:00.000+01:00

1. Test early and test often.
2. Integrate the application development and testing life cycles. You’ll get better results and you won’t have to mediate between two armed camps in your IT shop.
3. Formalize a testing methodology; you’ll test everything the same way and you’ll get uniform results.
4. Develop a comprehensive test plan; it forms the basis for the testing methodology.
5. Use both static and dynamic testing.
6. Define your expected results.
7. Understand the business reason behind the application. You’ll write a better application and better testing scripts.
8. Use multiple levels and types of testing (regression, systems, integration, stress and load).
9. Review and inspect the work, it will lower costs.
10. Don’t let your programmers check their own work; they’ll miss their own errors.