Lesson plan
Basis path testing
In software engineering, basis path testing, or structured testing, is a white box method for designing test cases. The method analyzes the control-flow graph of a program to find a set of linearly independent paths of execution. The method normally uses McCabe cyclomatic complexity to determine the number of linearly independent paths and then generates test cases for each path thus obtained. Basis path testing guarantees complete branch coverage (all edges of the control-flow graph), but achieves that without covering all possible paths of the control-flow graph the latter is usually too costly. Basis path testing has been widely used and studied.
Article summary
In software engineering, basis path testing, or structured testing, is a white box method for designing test cases. The method analyzes the control-flow graph of a program to find a set of linearly independent paths of execution. The method normally uses McCabe cyclomatic complexity to determine the number of linearly independent paths and then generates test cases for each path thus obtained. Basis path testing guarantees complete branch coverage (all edges of the control-flow graph), but achieves that without covering all possible paths of the control-flow graph the latter is usually too costly. Basis path testing has been widely used and studied.
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Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
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