Testing involves the use and production of lots of data. In fact, data are the core testimony to describe any test conditions. The data holds the key importance for various kinds of testing, including the functional testing. As we go on listing the testing methodologies, we can see a lot of data being involved in such tests. However, excess of anything brings a lot of confusion and disorientation.
In case of data, such complexities can be avoided by designing it in a proper way. An improper alignment of test data will bring chaos and trouble. You must be wondering about how a test data should look like. Actually, test data have no fixed form. It is an actual input for the software being tested. There are many instances where a particular testing module uses the input data provided by you. A well-designed data enable you to cover all the test scenarios. That is why it holds so much of importance and must be dealt properly before initiating a test.
As already said, test data can vary in different scenarios; however, you need a particular set of it. With adequate test data, you can design it well before the test. However, designing such data can be challenging at times, especially when you have limited amount of time for testing. It requires an utmost delicacy and unique touch to make it work.
Let’s explore in detail about nailing test data design.
Performance Test Data: These tests are not intended to find bugs. These tests are performed to determine the system’s adaptability to varying loads, especially in eliminating the bottleneck. The test data for such testing sessions need to be as realistic as possible. This is to provide a scenario very close to a live environment for the testing sessions. Such data can be collected from the customers; else it can be at least in the form of a feedback.
Security Testing Data: The test is meant for protecting your system from malicious impact. It requires you to design various sets of test data.
- Confidentiality test data: It ensures the protection of information provided by the client.
- Authentication test data: This allows you to test the user login in multiple ways.
- Integrity test data: It ensures the authenticity of the information provided to and by the system.
- Authorization test data: It determines the rights of a certain user containing various options and user roles
White Box Test Data: This test data is collected directly from the code. It is ought to cover all possible branches and paths and might also contain invalid parameters and argument combinations for Negative API testing.
Black Box Test Data: It is tricky to design a test data as the code might not suit for proper Black Box conditions. The test can be first performed without fetching any data. Later, it can be tried with valid and invalid data, illegal data formats, etc.
For many it might sounds like a tremendous amount of work. So, how about automating the test data generation?
There are in fact many tools to automate the task. They reduce the time and effort, which are otherwise very difficult if done manually. However, you must select your tool wisely and carefully.
