APPLYING YOUR TESTING SKILLS CONTENTS I. Configuration Testing 1. An Overview of Configuration Testing: 2. Isolating Configuration Bugs 3. Sizing up the Job 4. Approaching the Task: 5. Decide the Types of Hardware You ll Need a) Decide what Hardware Brands, model and Device Drivers are Available b) Decide which Hardware Features, Modes and Options are Possible II. 6. Pare down the Identified Hardware Configuration to a Manageable Set 7. Identify your Software s Unique Features that work with the Hardware Configuration. 8. Design the Test Cases to Run on each Configuration 9. Execute the Tests on each Configuration 10. Return the Tests until the Results Satisfy your Team 11. Obtaining the Hardware 12. Identify Hardware Standards 13. Configuration Testing Other Hardware Compatibility Testing 1. Compatibility Testing Overview 2. Platform and Application Versions 3. Backward and Forward Compatibility 4. The Impact of Testing Multiple Versions 5. Standards and Guidelines a) High-Level Standards and Guidelines b) Low-Level Standards and Guidelines 6. Data Sharing Compatibility
I. Configuration Testing 1. An Overview of Configuration Testing: (Question: Explain the importance of configuration testing = 8 marks) Configuration testing is the process of various types of hardware. It involves testing the various possible configurations for a standard PC used for personnel and commercial use. The hardware which needs to be tested is listed below. 1. The PC: - There are dozens of well-known computer manufacturers, such as Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and others. Each one designs and builds PCs using their own designed components or parts from other manufacturers. 2. Components: - Most PCs are modular and built up from various system boards, component cards, and other internal devices such as disk drives, CD-ROM drives, video, sound, modem, and network cards (Figure 1). There are TV cards and specialized cards for video capture and home automation. There are even input/output cards that can give a PC the ability to control a small factory! These internal devices are built by hundreds of different manufacturers. Figure 1
3. Peripherals: - Peripherals, shown in Figure.2, are the printers, scanners, mouse, keyboards, monitors, cameras, joysticks, and other devices that plug into system and operate externally to the PC. (Question: Explain the various peripheral devices to be tested for configuration testing = 4 Marks) Figure 2 1. Interfaces: - The components and peripherals plug into your PC through various types of interface connectors. These interfaces can be internal or external to the PC. Typical names for them are ISA, PCI, USB, PS/2, RS/232, and Firmware. It s possible to buy the exact same mouse in three different configurations. 2. Options and Memory: - Many components and peripherals can be purchased with different hardware options and memory sizes. Printers can be upgraded to support extra fonts or accept more memory to speed up printing. Graphics cards with more memory can support additional colors and higher resolutions. 3. Device Drivers: - All components and peripherals communicate with the operating system and the software applications through low-level software called device drivers. These drivers are provided by the hardware device manufacturer and are installed during setup of hardware.
Figure 3 2. Isolating Configuration Bugs: As a tester the first rule is to find bug. It is a part of dynamic white-box testing and programmer-debugging effort. A configuration problem needs carefully examining the code while running the software under different configurations to find the bug: 1. Software bug appears under a broad class of configurations. An example is if your greeting card program works fine with laser printers but not with inkjet printers. 2. The hardware device or its device drivers may have a bug that only your software reveals. Maybe your software is the only one that uses a unique display card setting. When your software is run with a specific video card, the PC crashes. 3. The hardware device or its device drivers may have a bug that can be seen with lots of other software although it may be particularly obvious with yours.
3. Sizing up the Job: 1. Configuration testing is a big task. 2. To test the gaming software application the tester has to test all graphical aspects of the game. The game is to be tested for sound effects, to allows multiple players to compete against each other over the phone lines, and can print out game details for strategy planning. 3. Configuration testing with different graphics cards, sound cards, modems, and printers.is important. 4. Approaching the Task: 1. The decision-to test the devices is an equivalence partition project. 2. The tester should be able to divide the project into smaller modules to be tested. 3. The tester should take the approval of the programmer to test the modules unit wise and then perform integration testing on it. 5. Decide the Types of Hardware You ll Need: To decide the basic requirement of the application software, the list of hardware requirement has to be made, such as the need of printer, sound card, graphics card, camera support. a) Decide what Hardware Brands, Model and Device Drivers are Available 1. To test the working of a graphics program, the output should be tested for the printer support starting from a dot matrix printer to laser printer. 2. The research should be done on the latest brands and models available in the market for the same. 3. The latest drivers for those printers should be available with the operating system company are these should be provided by the developer of the printer. b) Decide which Hardware Features, Modes and Options are Possible 1. The various quality models of the printer to be checked for the high end graphic application. 2. The colour printer should have the option for both gray scale and black and white printing. 3. The option for printing photos, converting it to text and.pdf formats should be there. 6. Pare down the Identified Hardware Configuration to a Manageable Set: 1. The various testing configuration for printer and scanner can be clubbed together to reduce the configuration testing time. 2. If one printer is tested for the configuration testing than all the printers are presumed to be through the test.
7. Identify your Software s Unique Features that work with the Hardware Configuration: 1. For similar kind of software application that are put for testing, it is the responsibility of the tester to identify the difference in the features and test for those cases to reduce the testing time. 2. To test word pad, notepad and word application software, the common menus are new, open save, which work perfectly. 3. The uniqueness of word is in word art which has to be tested. 4. The various fonts included in word pad, notepad and word should be tested which makes them unique. 8. Design the Test Cases to Run on each Configuration : The test cases should be designed and tested for the various configuration of the system. 1. Select and set up the next test configuration from the list. 2. Start the software. 3. Load in the file configtest.doc. 4. Confirm that the displayed file is correct. 5. Print the document. 6. Confirm that there are no error messages and that the printed document matches the standard. 7. Log any discrepancies as a bug. 9. Execute the Tests on each Configuration: 1. The tester generates the log report and the bug report after testing the application software. 2. Tester needs to work closely with the programmers and white-box testers to isolate the cause and decide if the bugs found are due to your software or to the hardware. 3. If the bug is specific to the hardware than it has to be reported to the manufacturer through his website. 4. Manufacturers have special team to work on these complaints. 10. Return the Tests until the Results Satisfy your Team: 1. Keep testing in units as the results in test to pas condition. 2. The integration testing is performed after that when the team is satisfied with the result of the unit testing. 11. Obtaining the Hardware: 1. Identify the need of the hardware that is needed for the software application. 2. Contact the vendor for the hardware requirement as prescribed by the specification.
II. 12. Identify Hardware Standards: 1. For Apple hardware, visit the Apple Hardware Web site at http://developer.apple.com/hardware/. 2. There you ll find information and links about developing and testing hardware and device drivers for Apple computers. 3. Another Apple link, http://developer.apple.com/testing/ points you to specific testing information, including links to test labs that perform configuration testing 13. Configuration Testing Other Hardware: 1. The software should be tested for various operating system and the hardware configuration. 2. It should not be only tested on the developers system only with that system hard ware configuration. Compatibility Testing 1. Compatibility Testing Overview: (Question: Explain the concept of compatibility testing = 4 Marks) 1. Software compatibility testing means checking that software interacts with and shares information correctly with other software. 2. Interaction could occur between two programs simultaneously running on the same computer or even on different computers connected through the internet. 3. The interaction could also be as simple as saving data to a floppy disk and handcarrying it to another computer across the room. 4. Examples of compatible software are Figure 4 Cutting text from a Web page and pasting it into a document opened in your word processor.
Saving accounting data from one spreadsheet program and then loading it into a completely different spreadsheet program. 2. Platform and Application Versions: 1. Selecting the target platforms for the development of the project is a big task. 2. It involves selecting the data structure depending on the requirement and the specification given by the client. 3. The developer has to be very familiar with the complete development process and the designed modules. 4. The version or versions that the software needs to be compatible with. 5. For example, you ve probably seen notices such as these on software packages or startup screens: Works best with Netscape 4.0 Requires Windows 95 or greater For use with Linux kernel 2.2.16 6. Each platform has its own development criteria and it is the development team which decides on the platform of development. 3. Backward and Forward Compatibility: (Question: Explain backward and forward compatibility = 4 Marks) 1. In backward compatibility, the software works with previous versions of the software. 2. In forward compatible, the software works with future versions of the software. 3. The simplest demonstration of backward and forward compatibility is with a.txt or text file. 4. As shown in Figure 5, a text file created using Notepad 98 running under Windows 98 is backward compatible all the way back to MS-DOS 1.0. 5. It s also forward compatible to Windows 2000 and its future version. Figure 5
4. The Impact of Testing Multiple Versions: (Question: Explain the impact of testing multiple versions in compatibility testing = 4 Marks) 1. Testing that multiple versions of platforms and software applications work properly with each other can be a huge task. 2. Consider the situation of having to compatibility test a new version of a popular operating system. 3. The programmers have made numerous bug fixes and performance improvements and have added many new features to the code. 4. There could be tens or hundreds of thousands of existing programs for the current versions of the OS. 5. The project s goal is to be 100 percent compatible with programs. 6. This is a big job, but it s just another example of how equivalence partitioning can be applied to reduce the amount of work. Figure 6 5. Standards and Guidelines: (Question: differentiate between high level and low level standard and guidelines = 4Marks) 1. There are really two levels of these requirements: high-level and low-level. High-level standards are the ones that guide your product s general compliance, its look and feel, its supported features. 2. Both are important and both need to be tested to assure compatibility. a) High-Level Standards and Guidelines 1. The software is checked for working under various operating system and the browsers. 2. Each of these is considered a platform and most have their own set of standards and guidelines that must be followed if an application is to claim that it s compatible with the platform. b) Low-Level Standards and Guidelines 1. Low-level standards are the small but important details, such as the file formats and the network communications protocols. 2. These low-level standards are often taken for granted, but must be tested.
3. Low -level compatibility standards are extension of the software s specification. 4. If the software specification states, The software will save and load its graphics files as.bmp,.jpg, and.gif formats, you need to find the standards for these formats and design tests to confirm that the software does indeed adhere to them. 6. Data Sharing Compatibility (Question: Explain the importance of data sharing in compatibility testing = 4 Marks) 1. The sharing of data among applications is important for any software. 2. A well created application follows all the standard and guidelines of development and the specification given by the client and allows the easy sharing of data with the other application software. 3. The most familiar means of transferring data from one program to another is saving and loading disk files. Examples of data compatibility are: File saves and file load are the data-sharing methods. the user data is stored on any storage device such as floppy disk, magnetic, or optical storage and then transfer it over to another computer running different software. The data format of the files needs to meet standards for it to be compatible on both computers. File export and file import are the means that many programs use to be compatible with older versions of themselves and with other programs. Figure 7 shows the Microsoft Word File Open dialog box and some of the 23 different file formats that can be imported into the word processor. Figure 7 4. The Clipboard is designed to hold several different data types. 5. Common ones in Windows are text, pictures, and sounds.these data types can also be different formats for example, the text can be plain old text, HTML, or rich text. Pictures can be bitmaps, metafiles, or.tifs.