Software testing plays a crucial role in software development and makes the software more reliable, secure, and successful. Software testing is a process to identify bugs for which testers write test cases for test scenarios. In organizations, there is a complete testing team with test labs.
Testers try their best to thoroughly test an application but still some bugs remain in the system which results in faults in the system. To overcome such a problem an application goes through exhaustive testing, where a testing team tries all possible test inputs to test the system, covering all possible test scenarios. Exhaustive testing is a time-consuming testing technique but the result is a robust application with minimum or no defects.
What is Exhaustive Testing?
Exhaustive Testing is one of the software testing techniques, where the testing team tests all possible input combinations for the software. Exhausting testing is about testing everything from top to bottom and covering every possible scenario such that the application does not crash and does not affect its functioning outsiders. Exhaustive Testing helps in making the application more robust and successful and ensures that the application does not fail or crash in the most possible cases.
Complete Exhaustive Testing is not possible because it is not possible to cover all the test scenarios but still testers try to cover as many possible scenarios for software and the faults which remain in the software are very minor and can be ignored as they do not drastically affect the functionality of the application.
Exhaustive Testing is completely different from Effective testing as both have different aspects and work. Exhaustive Testing deals with quality assurance of the application and enhances the success rate of the application.
Example of Exhaustive Testing
To better understand the working of exhaustive testing. Let’s start with an example where an application allows 12 possible input values in 6 different ways.
- That means the user can enter the password of length 12 with 6 different combinations.
- For the testing team, there are 6^12 possible input combinations for this particular test scenario.
- This is very time-consuming to test all these input values.
- Practically it is not feasible to do all these large input values and has only theoretical significance.
To make things simple and realistic testers can divide scenarios based on technical and business risks. As this helps in knowing and estimating the future risk for the software. As Exhaustive demands lots of time and effort from testers which is practically not possible due to time and other factors related to software design.
Why Complete Exhaustive Testing is not possible?
Exhaustive Testing means testing the application as a whole and covering every possible thing but it is not possible due to various reasons like:
- Time-consuming: Sometimes there are a large number of input values and manually it is not possible to test the application for all input combinations as it is time-consuming.
- Complex: It is complex testing due to large input possible combinations to test a scenario and practically it is not possible.
- Design issues: The internal technical design of the application does not allow it to enter or behave differently in particular situations. Like, a static variable will behave differently in its module and other modules.
- Time constraint: Time constraint is one of the big reasons that makes exhaustive testing impossible. Sometimes the behavior of the application is affected by the climate, temperature, etc, and this turns in result variation.
- Different users: It is not possible to test the input combinations as per the type of users.
- Testing situations: It is not possible to generate all input values of the probable output due to certain testing situations.
- Manual testing: Manual exhaustive testing is not possible as it takes the tester to his extreme edges to test the application.
Strategies for Exhaustive Testing
- Recovery: Check the recovery rate of the application by self-analysis and from the developing team. Prioritize the functionalities with high and low recovery rates this helps in knowing which functionality needs exhaustive testing or complete testing.
- Regression testing: Every time, after fixing the bug tester needs to validate the software by performing regression testing to check the other related functionalities are working as usual.
- Business Impact: This parameter helps in making the testing process easy and effective. The testing team can contact the business analyst to know the impact of the failure of certain functionalities on the other modules. This will help in calculating the risk assessment of the application on the business.
- Failure: This parameter helps in knowing which features of the application are most likely to fail. By this, testers can pay more attention to the most failing modules and test them by categorizing them as high-priority modules.
- Ad hoc testing: This testing helps in finding the defects in all possible modules of the application by breaking the application into small individual modules.
- Reviews: Take the reviews from your co-workers, business analysts, managers, and all the others related to the application internally or externally. The reviews will help in a deep understanding of the application requirements.
- Focus testing: Exhaustive testing is focused testing which means the goal of the testing is decided to make testing easy and directive. The testers can focus on the test scenarios and accordingly test an application.
- Refreshing test cases: Every time testers need to revise the test cases as the same test cases cannot be used every time. The testing team tries to cover all possible input values for which they need to write test cases.
Exhaustive Testing vs Effective Testing
|
Parameters |
Exhaustive Testing |
Effective Testing |
|---|---|---|
| Definition |
Test the software for all possible input values. |
It tests the effectiveness of an application and tests particular functions for given resources. |
| Feasibility |
It is practically not possible. |
It is possible to test the system. |
| Time |
It is very exhaustive and time-consuming. |
It does not take much time for the testing team. |
| Approach |
Mostly it is documented and theoretical approach. |
It is a completely practical approach and the tester test the effectiveness of the system. |
| Cost |
It is costly process due to exhaustive nature of checking all testcases. |
It is economic and does not extend the budget boundaries of the customer. |
| Scope |
It is complete testing and covers all possible test scenarios. |
It prioritizes test scenarios and smart testing techniques. |
Challenges in Exhaustive testing
- Practically not possible: It is not feasible and practicable to complete exhaustive testing. As per the seven software testing principles, “Exhaustive testing is not possible,” but testers try their best to cover as many possible input values to test the system.
- Manual Testing: Exhaustive testing is not automated, which is the biggest drawback, and testers need to test an application for all test scenarios manually.
- Time-consuming: It takes lots of time due to the extensive combination of possible input values to check an application. There is no end to exhaustive testing, and practically it is impossible to have complete, thorough testing of an application.
- Tiring: It tests the limit of the testing team and exhausts the software testers due to all manual test cases and techniques.
- Large input values: There are several combinations of input values to test the system. The application is tested by assuming how many possible ways to enter the value of a customer. Exhaustive testing is a very long and time-consuming process.
Advantages of Exhaustive Testing
- Bug-free application: A better software version is free from glitches and performs much better in possible circumstances.
- Robust Application: A more reliable and robust application that can serve in extreme break-down situations. Testing the application with exhaustive testing helps in making an efficient application.
- Customer satisfaction: Increased customer satisfaction level and a happy customer.
- Automation testing: Reduces the efforts of doing manual testing.
- Risk assessment: Categories the application based on priority. The high-priority functions are tested along with their risk assessment.