Basics of Software Testing

Triangle task:
TEST SPECIFICATIONS
The following test has been found useful in judging a person's software testing abilities.
( Glenford J. Myers,1979)
The system you are asked to test reads records from an input file, called TRIANGLE .DAT
The following is a typical file:

File: TRIANGLE. DAT

Record 1: 1,2 ,2

Record 2: 4,5,6

Each record in the file is to contain three integers separated by commas.
The three values in each record represent the lengths of the three sides of a
triangle (For example, the file contents above describe a triangle whose sides
are 1, 2, and 3 units long and a triangle whose sides are 4, 5, and 6units long).
The program evaluates whether the triangle described by each record is
equilateral, scalene, or isosceles and displays the result. An equilateral
triangle is one whose three sides are all of equal length, a scalene is one
whose sides all have different lengths, and an isosceles triangle is one that
has exactly two equal sides. You are to specify a set of test cases to test
this program.

Task

Objective: To assess software testing ability.

What you do

Review the above specifications. Now, assume the role of a software system tester.
Design a set of test cases that you think will properly test this system.
(Recall that to test for a triangle of lengths 1, 2, and 3 , you include
the record: 1,2,3 in the test file TRIANGLE.DAT )

Now compare your solution with the one that follows.

How many TC you have?

EVALUATING YOUR PERFORMANCE

Add up your marks as indicated above. A perfect score of 6 would mean
that you identified all of the test cases as described in the solution
Experienced programmers, by the way, average about 8 on this test
Before structured testing techniques were introduced, there was no
systematic way for you to improve your score. In the following lessons,
you will learn a set of principles and techniques that provide a structured
approach for identifying many of the cases you may have missed.
'Testing Object-Oriented Systems' by Robert V. Binder p.7
(there are 65 TC for Object Oriented GUI system)

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