Entries from May 2008 ↓

Despite of hundreds of web articles on Smoke and sanity testing, many people still have confusion between these terms and keep on asking to me. Here is a simple and understandable difference that can clear your confusion between smoke testing and sanity testing.

Here are the differences you can see:

SMOKE TESTING:

• Smoke testing originated in the hardware testing practice of turning on a new piece of hardware for the first time and considering it a success if it does not catch fire and smoke. In software industry, smoke testing is a shallow and wide approach whereby all areas of the application without getting into too deep, is tested.
• A smoke test is scripted, either using a written set of tests or an automated test
• A Smoke test is designed to touch every part of the application in a cursory way. It’s shallow and wide.
• Smoke testing is conducted to ensure whether the most crucial functions of a program are working, but not bothering with finer details. (Such as build verification).
• Smoke testing is normal health check up to a build of an application before taking it to testing in depth.

SANITY TESTING:

• A sanity test is a narrow regression test that focuses on one or a few areas of functionality. Sanity testing is usually narrow and deep.
• A sanity test is usually unscripted.
• A Sanity test is used to determine a small section of the application is still working after a minor change.
• Sanity testing is a cursory testing, it is performed whenever a cursory testing is sufficient to prove the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing.
• Sanity testing is to verify whether requirements are met or not, checking all features breadth-first.

Hope these points will help you to clearly understand the Smoke and sanity tests and will help to remove any confusion.

Thanks to VijayD for answering this question in simple way for our readers.

If you have more points on smoke and sanity testing to elaborate on, please comment below.

Mozilla released its Firefox 3 release candidate internet browser to public for testing purpose only. Mozilla Firefox is the most popular internet browser after Microsoft’s Internet explorer. By releasing this Firefox 3.0 version to developers and testers community, company wants to make sure product is fully ready for final release.

Company is taking feedback from testers and web developers to improve and fix most of the bugs before advancing to next version.

This is a good opportunity for beginners and experts in web testing. You can test this Firefox browser version 3 on your machine. As many of our readers asked me how to and from where to test the web applications, this would be a great example of testing web product.

Test Firefox 3 preview version from all testing aspects like UI, functionality, installation/ uninstallation, different plugin management in Firefox, browser security, performance, memory and load testing.

Do it manually or use any automation tool. Report your feedback to Firefox team.

Here is how to start guide:
1) Download the Firefox release candidate 3 version. Download from here.  You can download Firefox 3.0rc1 from above download page. You can also download other language packs if you are familiar with other languages if any.

2) Read the Firefox 3.0rc1 release notes and known issues here. From this page you will get idea of different testing scenarios and how you can test this application.

3) If you find any bug then report that bug to Firefox team using online Bugzilla. Before reporting any bug please read all known issues and bug filing instructions. You can also use this feedback form to send your feedbacks.

Happy testing!

This is the guest post from VijayD

Question:

What is the difference between client-server testing and web based testing and what are things that we need to test in such applications?

Ans:
Projects are broadly divided into two types of:

• 2 tier applications
• 3 tier applications

CLIENT / SERVER TESTING
This type of testing usually done for 2 tier applications (usually developed for LAN)
Here we will be having front-end and backend.

The application launched on front-end will be having forms and reports which will be monitoring and manipulating data

E.g: applications developed in VB, VC++, Core Java, C, C++, D2K, PowerBuilder etc.,
The backend for these applications would be MS Access, SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, Mysql, Quadbase

The tests performed on these types of applications would be
- User interface testing
- Manual support testing
- Functionality testing
- Compatibility testing & configuration testing
- Intersystem testing

WEB TESTING
This is done for 3 tier applications (developed for Internet / intranet / xtranet)
Here we will be having Browser, web server and DB server.

The applications accessible in browser would be developed in HTML, DHTML, XML, JavaScript etc. (We can monitor through these applications)

Applications for the web server would be developed in Java, ASP, JSP, VBScript, JavaScript, Perl, Cold Fusion, PHP etc. (All the manipulations are done on the web server with the help of these programs developed)

The DBserver would be having oracle, sql server, sybase, mysql etc. (All data is stored in the database available on the DB server)

The tests performed on these types of applications would be
- User interface testing
- Functionality testing
- Security testing
- Browser compatibility testing
- Load / stress testing
- Interoperability testing/intersystem testing
- Storage and data volume testing

A web-application is a three-tier application.
This has a browser (monitors data) [monitoring is done using html, dhtml, xml, javascript]-> webserver (manipulates data) [manipulations are done using programming languages or scripts like adv java, asp, jsp, vbscript, javascript, perl, coldfusion, php] -> database server (stores data) [data storage and retrieval is done using databases like oracle, sql server, sybase, mysql].

The types of tests, which can be applied on this type of applications, are:
1. User interface testing for validation & user friendliness
2. Functionality testing to validate behaviors, i/p, error handling, o/p, manipulations, services levels, order of functionality, links, content of web page & backend coverage’s
3. Security testing
4. Browser compatibility
5. Load / stress testing
6. Interoperability testing
7. Storage & data volume testing

A client-server application is a two tier application.
This has forms & reporting at front-end (monitoring & manipulations are done) [using vb, vc++, core java, c, c++, d2k, power builder etc.,] -> database server at the backend [data storage & retrieval) [using ms access, sql server, oracle, sybase, mysql, quadbase etc.,]

The tests performed on these applications would be
1. User interface testing
2. Manual support testing
3. Functionality testing
4. Compatibility testing
5. Intersystem testing
Some more points to clear the difference between client server, web and desktop applications:

Desktop application:
1. Application runs in single memory (Front end and Back end in one place)
2. Single user only

Client/Server application:
1. Application runs in two or more machines
2. Application is a menu-driven
3. Connected mode (connection exists always until logout)
4. Limited number of users
5. Less number of network issues when compared to web app.

Web application:
1. Application runs in two or more machines
2. URL-driven
3. Disconnected mode (state less)
4. Unlimited number of users
5. Many issues like hardware compatibility, browser compatibility, version compatibility, security issues, performance issues etc.

As per difference in both the applications come where, how to access the resources. In client server once connection is made it will be in state on connected, whereas in case of web testing http protocol is stateless, then there comes logic of cookies, which is not in client server.

For client server application users are well known, whereas for web application any user can login and access the content, he/she will use it as per his intentions.

So, there are always issues of security and compatibility for web application.

Over to you: On which application are you working? Desktop, client-server or web application? What is your experience while testing these applications?

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This is the guest post from Vijay D (Coincidence with my name).

Below sample bug/defect report will give you exact idea of how to report a bug in bug tracking tool.

Here is the example scenario that caused a bug:

Lets assume in your application under test you want to create a new user with user information, for that you need to logon into the application and navigate to USERS menu > New User, then enter all the details in the ‘User form’ like, First Name, Last Name, Age, Address, Phone etc. Once you enter all these information, you need to click on ‘SAVE’ button in order to save the user. Now you can see a success message saying, “New User has been created successfully”.

But when you entered into your application by logging in and navigated to USERS menu > New user, entered all the required information to create new user and clicked on SAVE button. BANG! The application crashed and you got one error page on screen. (Capture this error message window and save as a Microsoft paint file)

Now this is the bug scenario and you would like to report this as a BUG in your bug-tracking tool.

How will you report this bug effectively?

Here is the sample bug report for above mentioned example:
(Note that some ‘bug report’ fields might differ depending on your bug tracking system)

SAMPLE BUG REPORT:

Bug Name: Application crash on clicking the SAVE button while creating a new user.
Bug ID: (It will be automatically created by the BUG Tracking tool once you save this bug)
Area Path: USERS menu > New Users
Build Number: Version Number 5.0.1
Severity: HIGH (High/Medium/Low) or 1
Priority: HIGH (High/Medium/Low) or 1
Assigned to: Developer-X
Reported By: Your Name
Reported On: Date
Reason: Defect
Status: New/Open/Active (Depends on the Tool you are using)
Environment: Windows 2003/SQL Server 2005

Description:
Application crash on clicking the SAVE button while creating a new
user, hence unable to create a new user in the application.

Steps To Reproduce:
1) Logon into the application
2) Navigate to the Users Menu > New User
3) Filled all the user information fields
4) Clicked on ‘Save’ button
5) Seen an error page “ORA1090 Exception: Insert values Error…”
6) See the attached logs for more information (Attach more logs related to bug..IF any)
7) And also see the attached screenshot of the error page.

Expected result: On clicking SAVE button, should be prompted to a success message “New User has been created successfully”.

(Attach ‘application crash’ screen shot.. IF any)

Save the defect/bug in the BUG TRACKING TOOL.  You will get a bug id, which you can use for further bug reference.
Default ‘New bug’ mail will go to respective developer and the default module owner (Team leader or manager) for further action.

Related: If you need more information about writing a good bug report read our previous post “How to write a good bug report“.