What are Functional Testing Types 2023

 

Functional testing can be described as software testing that measures the software's functionality against its functional requirements. What does that actually mean? Let's first understand what functional requirements are.

The requirements specification document lists all business requirements during the software development process. These requirements can further be divided into functional or non-functional requirements. Functional requirements describe what the system should do. Functional requirements are critical features that make the product work. Non-functional specifications specify how the system should operate. These are the characteristics of the product that make it easier to use and improve user experience. These requirements can be met or not, but the system will still work.

·      Let's examine a few examples where functional testing can be used.

·      Test the login features against valid and ineligible inputs to ensure it works

·      Test the payment gateway and notify the user if the attempt fails.

·      A file uploading function - Testing that it sends an Error message if the file's size exceeds the limit

Types Of Functional Testing

Functional testing can be used for many purposes. There are many types. Based on your specific use case, you can choose which type of functional testing to implement.

What is Unit Testing?

Unit testing is the most common form of functional testing. Unit testing involves the testing of different components or source code separately to ensure that they work as intended. This type of testing is mostly used by developers. In some cases, QA technicians may also use unit tests. While unit tests may be manually performed, most are automated.

When should you conduct unit tests?

Unit testing identifies bugs in the early stages of development to reduce time and costs later. Unit tests should always be conducted alongside development. Unit tests should be used to find and fix bugs quickly, rather than running a complicated workflow to solve multiple bugs. It's not possible to set a hard and fast policy for your team about when unit tests should be used and when they should be avoided. Unit tests are strongly recommended for the first phase of development. You should also run a unit testing when you're working on a new feature.

What is Smoke Testing?

Smoke testing, also known as build verification test, is used to determine if the deployed build works. If the build is stable, then the QA team may move onto other types testing. Smoke testing helps to detect issues before the testing begins. It saves time and energy.

When should you conduct smoke tests

New features added to a build are subject to smoke testing. The testing can be continued if the new build passes these tests.

What is Regression Testing and how can it help you?

Regression testing, a type functional testing, is done when changes to code are made in order to verify that there have been no other problems.

Let's look at different types of regression testing techniques.

Retest all – This technique involves rerunning all of the tests in order to make sure that there are no bugs. This technique isn't recommended as it takes too much time and consumes more resources. This method is expensive in terms of cost.

Selection of regression test cases - Only a handful of tests are chosen for regression testing. Based on the module where changes were made, the selection of test cases will be made.

Regression test priority - This method identifies the primary or most used features of the product and the secondary or less frequently used features. Next, all test cases are prioritized. Regression testing is only done for those cases that are high-priority. This helps to save time and human resource.

When should regression tests be run?

Regression tests can be run when development has been frozen or when new features or changes are introduced to the code.

What is Sanity Testing?

As a subset, sanity testing can be considered as regression testing. It takes place after that. Sanity testing is performed after all the code fixes have been made. This ensures smooth performance and ensures that the product works as it should. If the sanity testing fails, build will not be activated.

Imagine that we have launched an app for clothing stores. A few days later, users complain that the "Continue shopping" option doesn't work after adding items into the cart. The development team is notified and the code is fixed. The testing team then takes up the bug fix to run a safety test. The testing team gives the green signal and a new build is activated.

Because there is no documentation or predefinec testing, the main benefit of sanity-testing is its speed. It's useful for cases when bug fixes are needed on an immediate basis.

When should you conduct sanity testing?

After regression testing has been completed, minor changes are made to the code. Before the build is released to production, it is finished.

What is Integration Testing?

Integrating software components is the process of testing them as a whole after they have been integrated. This type of black box testing involves testers working with software to find the weak points. These are the five most common methods for integration testing.

Big Bang Integration testing is done after development has been frozen and before the system is assembled.

Top-down Integration Testing: Usually, two or three modules are integrated from top-to-bottom and are tested.

Bottom-up Integration Testing - The opposite of Top down integration testing

Incremental integration testing - Each module that is logically connected is tested individually.

Hybrid integration testing combines both top-down approaches and bottom-up. Testing is done to determine the interface and communication of modules.

When is integration testing necessary?

After unit testing has been completed, integration testing should be performed. Integration testing is recommended before you move on to other types of testing in order for the process to run smoothly.

Open Source Functional Testing Software

There are many open-source and free functional testing tools. This article will focus on the most widely used functional testing tools. Let's look at them individually:

JUnit

JUnit, an open-source framework for testing Java-based applications, is called JUnit. JUnit offers unit testing capabilities that allow you to test code in small pieces. It is often used in test driven development. This allows it to detect bugs earlier than other tools. To locate bugs, assertions and annotations are used. Annotations tell code what to do in the event of code failure. JUnit5 has been released.

Selenium

Selenium, an open-source automation tool for testing web applications, is powerful. Selenium was created in 2004 and is widely used for testing web applications. Selenium can be used to test web applications in a number of programming languages such as Javascript, Javascript, C#, Javascript, Javascript and Javascript. This allows testers to use the language they already know and run their test scripts without learning any new language.

Selenium offers a broad range browser support, including Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome version 12.0.712.0, Internet Explorer and Safari versions 11.5 and higher, Opera version 11.5 or above, Html Unit version 2.9 and above, as well as Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris operating systems.

BlazeMeter

BlazeMeter provides a self-service testing platform that supports open-source tools. BlazeMeter has a scalable feature that can run tests on multiple engines. All testing resources are available at your disposal on an ongoing basis. It creates detailed reports for each session. All test results are stored in a central repository which can be accessed from any location.

BlazeMeter can also be used to perform API functional testing or GUI functional tests. API functional testing is where the backend of an API application is tested. After that, various tests using custom parameters are run. GUI functional tests verify the functionality of buttons and inputs on applications' front ends.

BlazeMeter has an intuitive UI that is simple to use. It doesn't require any installation. This reduces the time and effort required to test. BlazeMeter works with many other testing tools, such as JMeter, Gatling Selenium, Selenium, and Taurus. It's cloud-based, so it doesn't have to depend on any specific machine or allocate resources.

Conclusion

Functional testing is an integral part of the software development cycle. Because the test cases are based upon real-world scenarios, it ensures that there is no bug in the product. Functional testing is a way to ensure that all product requirements are met. It also enhances the product's quality.