QA-Testing Definitions-Interview Questions: III (T – Z):
Race Condition:
A cause of concurrency problems. Multiple accesses to a shared resource, at least one of which is a write, with no mechanism used by either to moderate simultaneous access.
Ramp Testing:
Continuously raising an input signal until the system breaks down.
Recovery Testing:
Confirms that the program recovers from expected or unexpected events without loss of data or functionality. Events can include shortage of disk space, unexpected loss of communication, or power out conditions.
Regression Testing:
Retesting a previously tested program following modification to ensure that faults have not been introduced or uncovered as a result of the changes made.
Release Candidate:
A pre-release version, which contains the desired functionality of the final version, but which needs to be tested for bugs (which ideally should be removed before the final version is released).
Sanity Testing:
Brief test of major functional elements of a piece of software to determine if its basically operational.
Scalability Testing:
Performance testing focused on ensuring the application under test gracefully handles increases in work load.
Security Testing:
Testing which confirms that the program can restrict access to authorized personnel and that the authorized personnel can access the functions available to their security level.
Smoke Testing:
A quick-and-dirty test that the major functions of a piece of software work. Originated in the hardware testing practice of turning on a new piece of hardware for the first time and considering it a success if it does not catch on fire.
Soak Testing:
Running a system at high load for a prolonged period of time. For example, running several times more transactions in an entire day (or night) than would be expected in a busy day, to identify and performance problems that appear after a large number of transactions have been executed.
Software Requirements Specification:
A deliverable that describes all data, functional and behavioral requirements, all constraints, and all validation requirements for software/
Software Testing:
A set of activities conducted with the intent of finding errors in software.
Static Analysis:
Analysis of a program carried out without executing the program.
Static Analyzer:
A tool that carries out static analysis.
Static Testing:
Analysis of a program carried out without executing the program.
Storage Testing:
Testing that verifies the program under test stores data files in the correct directories and that it reserves sufficient space to prevent unexpected termination resulting from lack of space. This is external storage as opposed to internal storage.
Stress Testing:
Testing conducted to evaluate a system or component at or beyond the limits of its specified requirements to determine the load under which it fails and how. Often this is performance testing using a very high level of simulated load.
Structural Testing:
Testing based on an analysis of internal workings and structure of a piece of software.
System Testing:
Testing that attempts to discover defects that are properties of the entire system rather than of its individual components.
Testability:
The degree to which a system or component facilitates the establishment of test criteria and the performance of tests to determine whether those criteria have been met.
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Testing:
• The process of exercising software to verify that it satisfies specified requirements and to detect errors.
• The process of analyzing a software item to detect the differences between existing and required conditions (that is, bugs), and to evaluate the features of the software item (Ref. IEEE Std 829).
• The process of operating a system or component under specified conditions, observing or recording the results, and making an evaluation of some aspect of the system or component.
Test Automation:
Read Automated Testing.
Test Bed:
An execution environment configured for testing. May consist of specific hardware, OS, network topology, configuration of the product under test, other application or system software, etc. The Test Plan for a project should enumerate the test beds(s) to be used.
Test Case:
• Test Case is a commonly used term for a specific test. This is usually the smallest unit of testing. A Test Case will consist of information such as requirements testing, test steps, verification steps, prerequisites, outputs, test environment, etc.• A set of inputs, execution preconditions, and expected outcomes developed for a particular objective, such as to exercise a particular program path or to verify compliance with a specific requirement.
Test Driven Development:
Testing methodology associated with Agile Programming in which every chunk of code is covered by unit tests, which must all pass all the time, in an effort to eliminate unit-level and regression bugs during development. Practitioners of TDD write a lot of tests, i.e. an equal number of lines of test code to the size of the production code.
Test Driver:
A program or test tool used to execute a tests. Also known as a Test Harness.
Test Environment:
The hardware and software environment in which tests will be run, and any other software with which the software under test interacts when under test including stubs and test drivers.
Test First Design:
Test-first design is one of the mandatory practices of Extreme Programming (XP).It requires that programmers do not write any production code until they have first written a unit test.
Test Harness:
A program or test tool used to execute a test. Also known as a Test Driver.
Test Plan:
A document describing the scope, approach, resources, and schedule of intended testing activities. It identifies test items, the features to be tested, the testing tasks, who will do each task, and any risks requiring contingency planning. Ref IEEE Std 829.
Test Procedure:
A document providing detailed instructions for the execution of one or more test cases.
Test Scenario:
Definition of a set of test cases or test scripts and the sequence in which they are to be executed.
Test Script:
Commonly used to refer to the instructions for a particular test that will be carried out by an automated test tool.
Test Specification:
A document specifying the test approach for a software feature or combination or features and the inputs, predicted results and execution conditions for the associated tests.
Test Suite:
A collection of tests used to validate the behavior of a product. The scope of a Test Suite varies from organization to organization. There may be several Test Suites for a particular product for example. In most cases however a Test Suite is a high level concept, grouping together hundreds or thousands of tests related by what they are intended to test.
Test Tools:
Computer programs used in the testing of a system, a component of the system, or its documentation.
Thread Testing:
A variation of top-down testing where the progressive integration of components follows the implementation of subsets of the requirements, as opposed to the integration of components by successively lower levels.
Top Down Testing:
An approach to integration testing where the component at the top of the component hierarchy is tested first, with lower level components being simulated by stubs. Tested components are then used to test lower level components. The process is repeated until the lowest level components have been tested.
Total Quality Management:
A company commitment to develop a process that achieves high quality product and customer satisfaction.
Traceability Matrix:
A document showing the relationship between Test Requirements and Test Cases.
Usability Testing:
Testing the ease with which users can learn and use a product.
Use Case:
The specification of tests that are conducted from the end-user perspective. Use cases tend to focus on operating software as an end-user would conduct their day-to-day activities.
User Acceptance Testing:
A formal product evaluation performed by a customer as a condition of purchase.
Unit Testing:
Testing of individual software components.
Validation:
The process of evaluating software at the end of the software development process to ensure compliance with software requirements. The techniques for validation is testing, inspection and reviewing.
Verification:
The process of determining whether of not the products of a given phase of the software development cycle meet the implementation steps and can be traced to the incoming objectives established during the previous phase. The techniques for verification are testing, inspection and reviewing.
Volume Testing:
Testing which confirms that any values that may become large over time (such as accumulated counts, logs, and data files), can be accommodated by the program and will not cause the program to stop working or degrade its operation in any manner.
Walkthrough:
A review of requirements, designs or code characterized by the author of the material under review guiding the progression of the review.
White Box Testing:
Testing based on an analysis of internal workings and structure of a piece of software. Includes techniques such as Branch Testing and Path Testing. Also known as Structural Testing and Glass Box Testing. Contrast with Black Box Testing.
Workflow Testing:
Scripted end-to-end testing which duplicates specific workflows which are expected to be utilized by the end-user.
