Software Testing Dictionary - 8

Race condition defect. Many concurrent defects result from data-race conditions. A data-race condition may be defined as two accesses to a shared variable, at least one of which is a write, with no mechanism used by either to prevent simultaneous access. However, not all race conditions are defects.

Recovery testingTesting how well a system recovers from crashes, hardware failures, or other catastrophic problems.

Regression Testing. Testing conducted for the purpose of evaluating whether or not a change to the system (all CM items) has introduced a new failure. Regression testing is often accomplished through the construction, execution and analysis of product and system tests.

Regression Testing. - testing that is performed after making a functional improvement or repair to the program. Its purpose is to determine if the change has regressed other aspects of the program [Glenford J.Myers, 1979]

Reengineering.The process of examining and altering an existing system to reconstitute it in a new form. May include reverse engineering (analyzing a system and producing a representation at a higher level of abstraction, such as design from code), restructuring (transforming a system from one representation to another at the same level of abstraction), recommendation (analyzing a system and producing user and support documentation), forward engineering (using software products derived from an existing system, together with new requirements, to produce a new system), and translation (transforming source code from one language to another or from one version of a language to another).

Reference testing. A way of deriving expected outcomes by manually validating a set of actual outcomes. A less rigorous alternative to predicting expected outcomes in advance of test execution. [Dorothy Graham, 1999]

Reliability testing. Verify the probability of failure free operation of a computer program in a specified environment for a specified time.

Reliability of an object is defined as the probability that it will not fail under specified conditions, over a period of time. The specified conditions are usually taken to be fixed, while the time is taken as an independent variable. Thus reliability is often written R(t) as a function of time t, the probability that the object will not fail within time t.

Any computer user would probably agree that most software is flawed, and the evidence for this is that it does fail. All software flaws are designed in -- the software does not break, rather it was always broken. But unless conditions are right to excite the flaw, it will go unnoticed -- the software will appear to work properly. [Professor Dick Hamlet. Ph.D.]

Range Testing. For each input identifies the range over which the system behavior should be the same. [William E. Lewis, 2000]

Risk management.An organized process to identify what can go wrong, to quantify and access associated risks, and to implement/control the appropriate approach for preventing or handling each risk identified.

Robust test. A test, that compares a small amount of information, so that unexpected side effects are less likely to affect whether the test passed or fails. [Dorothy Graham, 1999]