Have you ever experienced any problem while using an application which earlier was working fine? This might be due to the changes made during the maintenance or up-gradation of the application.
Where is the Problem?
The problem here is due to in-efficient testing of the application. The changes made in one part of the application may affect the working of other parts of the application as well. Is your application able to handle the last moment changes without affecting the existing functionalities? No? Here is the solution that you are looking for.
The Solution
Do you need to make sure that your online business platforms are up and running at all times without interrupting customer usage? The most common and effective way to perform regression testing whenever there is even a little change in your application.
Why is it Important?
Issues found in a live application may affect the customer usage of the application. For example software failures, as in Ariane-5 rocket and the 1990 AT&T outage, occurred as a result of not performing regression testing after the changes made in the software system. Thus proper testing is required to assure the good quality of the application. It is important for a team to ensure that other features of the application are still working as expected as earlier.
Performing regression testing should be taken very seriously as if testing the feature the first time. There are different regression testing techniques which could be used to meet the purpose.
Regression Testing and Its Types
Regression testing is a black-box testing technique which means to test all the other related modules of the application after some changes are made in one module. It ensures the overall working of the application after the change.
Which type of Regression Testing technique should be applied depends on the factor that in which phase is the testing. There are 3 different types of Regression Testing techniques:
- Unit Regression
- Partial Regression
- Complete Regression
The Question That Arises Here Is: Which Regression Technique To Use?
Usually, testing starts from the initial stage itself. We do the unit regression when only a unit of code is to be tested and the other section of code is currently not in scope. Impact analysis is followed by partial regression. When new code is added to the older existing code, we need to ensure that in addition to the new code the older one is also working fine. For such scenario, we perform Partial Regression testing. When changes are made in the root code an application or there are multiple changes in the existing code, complete regression testing is performed. In this whole system is tested in a way to assure that it is working fine. The application after the complete regression is deployed to the client.
Why Not Depend Only on Executing Test Cases?
Covering the critical sections of application is the main focus rather than concentrating on the coverage of test cases. By doing this we achieve confidence that builds is working fine and the changes made do not affect the other features of the application. Solely depending on the test cases is not the solution and neither it is possible. Purely undertaking regression testing by the number of cases is not very easy, nor is it practical. When executing the regression test cases, it is not possible to calculate a proper estimate about the amount of detail that needs to be taken into.
How To Perform Regression Testing?
We need to start with Smoke/Sanity Test to check if the system is stable under the normal conditions. This is done before the actual testing is initiated. When the new code is added to the old the modifications must be the analyzed. If not done so then there are chances of getting bugs in the system. The test cases for regression should be such that the main features of the system are intact firmly. To check the basic functionalities of the system sanity test cases must be executed. After that setup related test cases are checked. And finally, in the end, regression test cases are executed. These include integration test cases. Last minute changes in code can break other functionalities of the software, thus to make sure that everything is working fine, we must perform regression. In the end, the execution of the prioritized test cases is done. The test cases are selected on the basis of area of frequent defects and based on the features and their criticality. Aggressive testing is done on those areas where multiple changes are made.
Conclusion
As the industry demands up-gradation on a regular basis, we need to be sure that the previous functionalities of the software when integrated with the new code it is working fine. That’s why there is a need to perform regression testing.
We at BugRaptors have a team of professionals to give best in class regression testing services. The team follows the criteria starting from analyzing the changes in the requirements followed by the process of selecting accurate test cases and ensures that your software is working fine after the changes made.
