Why Test Data Is Important In Software Testing

January 11, 2021

Every tech-savvy knows that testing is a process that creates and devours a huge amount of data. The test data generation techniques layout some underlying conditions for a test. And interacts with the medium through which the tester influences the results. It is a vital part of most functional tests.

What is Test Data in Software Testing?

Test data is the outlined information that is fundamentally utilized to test the software product program. During test execution, some input is given to a software program. This input is the test data in software testing. It depicts the data that is influenced or gets affected by software execution while testing. Test data is used for positive as well as negative testing. Positive testing to verify that the function is producing the anticipated results for a given input. And negative testing to test software capability to handle unexpected inputs.

Need for Test Data before Test Execution

Sample data must be created before the beginning of test execution. If not done, then it gets difficult to handle test data management. It takes several pre-steps to create test data in most of the testing environments. Also, the test environment configurations are super time-consuming. Besides, there’s a high possibility of exceeding the testing deadline if test data generation is conducted during the test execution phase.

Importance of Test Data

  • Test data is the input required for testing the software.
  • Test data feed checks whether the output is the expected result.
  • Test data varies for variable situations in testing, either valid or invalid.
  • Test data helps the developers to detect issues during fixes.
  • Test data is utilized as a mode of verification that yields the desired results for a given set of inputs. A different set of data can as well be given to test the ability of the program to process the unusual change.
  • Test data may be generated in an organized manner for cases like domain testing. It may also be generated in less-organized ways or approaches for cases like high-volume randomized automated tests.
  • Test data can be developed by a tester, a program, or a function that aids the tester. Test data may be laid down for re-use or can be used once and then forgotten.
  • Defining the test data might be advantageous for other users or developers than what the system provided for the given inputs.

    • Here are some of the testing types:

  • Test Data for White Box Testing – In White Box Testing, the test data management is derived straight from the code under testing. The testing data produced will cover all the branches and paths in the program source code at least once. Negative API testing: testing data may consist of invalid parameters or a combination of arguments that are used to call various program methods.
  • Test Data for Black Box Testing – The code is invisible to the tester in Black Box Testing. Here the test cases check system response when no data, valid, or invalid test data is submitted. The test data meets boundary value conditions and state transition testing strategy. Also, it qualifies equivalence partitions and decision table testing strategy.
  • Test Data for Performance Testing – Performance testing determines the speed of response under a certain workload. Rather than finding bugs, performance testing focuses on minimizing the congestion. In the case of performance testing, the set of sample data used must be close to ‘real’ or ‘live’ data that is utilized on production.
  • Test Data for Security Testing – Security Testing derives whether the IT system can protect the data from security threats. The test data generated must cover the following topics:
    • Confidentiality – All information from clients is well-protected and not shared with any outside party.
    • Integrity – To generate suitable test data, an in-depth analysis of the code, design, databases, and file structure is important. It is necessary to determine the system information is correct.
    • Authentication – It must be able to represent the process of identification of a user. The test data can be a different combination of pre-defined usernames and passwords that will block any unauthentic intrusion.
    • Authorization – It conveys the rights of a specific user. The testing data consist of various roles or operations that allow only privileged users to perform certain tasks.

    • Automated Test Data Generation Tools

    For generating different sets of data, one can make use of a variety of automated test data generation tools. Here are some of them:

  • DTM Test Data Generator – This is a fully personalized test data generator that generates data, tables, views, procedures, etc for database testing purposes.
  • Datatect by Banner Software – It is a SQL data generator that generates a range of realistic test data in ASCII flat files. Or it directly generates test data for RDBMS including Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, etc.

    • Conclusion

    Thus, it is clear that a well-defined set of test data helps in the identification and rectification of significant flaws in functionality. The selected set of data must be re-analyzed and re-evaluated at every phase of the development cycle of the product. So, it is essential to keep an eye on it.