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To actually start off the testing, it is good to have optimum test cases in
place which not only cover all the desired features but also are sufficient to
detect good quality bugs. There are many design techniques for writing test
case. One of the most popular among them is Equivalence Partitioning. It is a
Black-box (Specification Based) Test Case Design Technique with two primary
goals
·
To minimize the number of test cases to necessary
minimum.
·
To select the right test cases to cover all
possible scenarios.
This method divides the input domain of a program into classes of data from
which test cases can be derived. It is based on an evaluation of equivalence
classes for an
input
condition. An
equivalence
class represents a set of valid or invalid states for input
conditions. An input has certain ranges which are valid and other ranges which
are invalid.
Supplemented by BVA( Boundary Value Analysis).Having determined the
partitions of possible inputs the method of boundary value analysis has to be
applied to select the most effective test cases out of these partitions
This can be explained by the following example of a function which accept input
parameter "month" of a date. The valid range for the month is 1 (January ) to 12
( December ). This valid range is called a partition. In this example there are
two further partitions of invalid ranges. The first invalid partition would be =
13. You can also have invalid partition for non-digit input as well.
.... -2 -1 0 1.............. 12 13 14 15.....
--------------|-------------------|---------------------
Invalid partition 1
valid partition invalid partition 2
Why Equivalence Partitioning
The testing theory related to equivalence partitioning says that only one test
case of each partition is needed to evaluate the behavior of the program for the
related partition. In other words it is sufficient to select one test case out
of each partition to check the behavior of the program. To use more or even all
test cases of a partition will not find new faults in the program. The values
within one partition are considered to be "equivalent". Thus the number of test
cases can be reduced considerably.
An additional effect by applying this technique is that you also find the so
called "dirty" test cases. An inexperienced tester may be tempted to use input
as 1 to 12 and forget to select some invalid partitions all together. This would
lead to a huge number of unnecessary test cases on the one hand, and lack of
test cases on the other hand.
Types of Equivalence Classes
·
Continuous classes run from one point to another,
with no clear separations of values. An example is a temperature range.
·
Discrete classes have clear separation of values.
Discrete classes are sets, or enumerations.
·
Boolean classes are either true or false. Boolean
classes only have two values, either true or false, on or off, yes or no. An
example is whether a checkbox is checked or unchecked.
Thus, Equivalence
classes may be defined according to the following guidelines:
·
If an input condition specifies a
range, at the minimum one valid and two invalid equivalence classes
can be defined.
·
If an input condition requires a specific
value, then one valid and one invalid equivalence class can be
defined.
·
If an input condition specifies a member of a
set, then one valid and one invalid equivalence class can be defined
If an input condition is
Boolean,
then one valid and one invalid equivalence class can be defined.
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