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QA Booklet
A brief collection of basic IT concepts for starting QA / testing job
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1 Testing Types and Techniques

1.1 Unit Testing
UNIT testing is defined as a type of software testing where individual units/ components of
software are tested.
Unit testing of software applications is done during the development (coding) of an application.
The objective of Unit Testing is to isolate a section of code and verify its correctness. Unit testing
is usually performed by the developer.
In SDLC, STLC, V Model, Unit testing is first level of testing done before integration testing. Unit
testing is a White Box testing technique that is usually performed by the developer. Though, in a
practical world due to time crunch or reluctance of developers to tests, QA engineers also do unit
testing.
Unit Tests fix bug early in development cycle and save costs. It helps understand the developers the code
base and enable them to make changes quickly.

1.2 Smoke Testing and Sanity testing

Smoke Testing
Smoke Testing is a special type of testing performed on Software build to check the critical
functionalities of the program. It is done at the early stage before regression testing or any other
detailed testing is performed on the software build. The purpose of smoke testing is to reject badly
performing application so that the QA team does not have to waste time in the installation or
testing of a software application.
In smoke testing, the test cases are chosen to define the most critical functions of the application
or component of the system. The objective is clear here to verify the most critical functionalities of
the system either they are working fine or not.
For example, a typical smoke test involves:
 Verification of the application either it is launched successfully or not,
 Verify either GUI of the application is responsive or not.
 Verify either financial transaction is completed well and more….
In brief, Smoke Testing makes sure that build is testable or not received from the development
team. It is also named as the ―Day 0‖ check and performed on the build level. It saves time as you
don‘t have to test the whole application if the core functionalities of the program are not working.
So, the primary focus will be the core application workflow in case of the Smoke testing.
Sanity testing
Sanity Testing is a special type of software testing performed after receiving a software build with
little changes in code or functionality to ascertain that certain bugs have been fixed in advance to
resolve functionality issues. The goal of sanity testing is to determine that the proposed
functionalities are working roughly as expected. If sanity testing fails then the build is rejected
directly to save time and costs that are involved in more rigorous testing.
The objective of sanity testing is not to verify the core functionalities thoroughly but to determine
that the developer has applied some rationality while building a software program. For example, if
your scientific calculator fives the result of 2+2=5! For the instance, then there is no need to check
the advanced functionalities like trigonometry calculations or more.
Sanity testing is performed during the release phase to check the main functionalities of an
application without going into depth. It is named as the subset of regression testing. There are
certain cases when regression testing is not done to the build due to time constraints and sanity
testing is considered more suitable to check the main functionalities.
The major difference between both types of testing can be quickly understood by the diagram
given below.
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Smoke Testing Vs Sanity Testing

Smoke Testing Sanity Testing

Smoke Testing is performed to ascertain that the Sanity Testing is done to check the new
critical functionalities of the program is working functionality/bugs have been fixed
fine

The objective of this testing is to verify the The objective of the testing is to verify the
"stability" of the system in order to proceed with "rationality" of the system in order to proceed with
more rigorous testing more rigorous testing

This testing is performed by the developers or Sanity testing is usually performed by testers
testers

Smoke testing is usually documented or scripted Sanity testing is usually not documented and is
unscripted

Smoke testing is a subset of Acceptance testing Sanity testing is a subset of Regression Testing

Smoke testing exercises the entire system from Sanity testing exercises only the particular
end to end component of the entire system

Smoke testing is like General Health Check Up Sanity Testing is like specialized health check up

1.3 System testing / End to End Testing

System Testing is the testing of a complete and fully integrated software product. Usually, software
is only one element of a larger computer-based system. Ultimately, software is interfaced with
other software/hardware systems. System Testing is actually a series of different tests whose sole
purpose is to exercise the full computer-based system.
Two Category of Software Testing
 Black Box Testing
 White Box Testing
System Testing involves testing the software code for following

 Testing the fully integrated applications including external peripherals in order to check how
components interact with one another and with the system as a whole. This is also called
End to End testing scenario.
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 Verify thorough testing of every input in the application to check for desired outputs.
 Testing of the user's experience with the application.

1.4 What is GUI Testing?

Graphical User Interface Testing is to test the interface between the application and the end user.

1.5 Retesting and Regression testing

Re-testing
Re-testing is a type of testing performed to check the test cases that were unsuccessful in the
previous execution are now successfully passed after the defects are fixed.
Regression Testing
Regression Testing is a type of software testing executed to check whether a code change has not
unfavorably disturbed current features & functions of an Application
Retesting Vs Regression Testing

Regression Testing Re-testing

Regression Testing is carried out to Re-testing is carried out to confirm the

confirm whether a recent program or test cases that failed in the final
code change has not adversely affected execution are passing after the defects
existing features are fixed

The purpose of Regression Testing is that Re-testing is done on the basis of the
new code changes should not have any Defect fixes
side effects to existing functionalities

Defect verification is not the part of Defect verification is the part of re-
Regression Testing testing

Based on the project and availability of Priority of re-testing is higher than

resources, Regression Testing can be regression testing, so it is carried out
carried out parallel with Re-testing before regression testing

You can do automation for regression You cannot automate the test cases for
testing, Manual Testing could be Retesting.
expensive and time-consuming

Regression testing is done for passed test Retesting is done only for failed test
cases cases

Regression testing checks for unexpected Re-testing makes sure that the original
side-effects fault has been corrected
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1.6 Integration testing
Testing of all integrated modules to verify the combined functionality after integration is termed as
Integration Testing. Modules are typically code modules, individual applications, client and server
applications on a network, etc. This type of testing is especially relevant to client/server and
distributed systems. Integration testing is the process of testing the interface between two
software units or module. It‘s focus on determining the correctness of the interface. The purpose
of the integration testing is to expose faults in the interaction between integrated units. Once all
the modules have been unit tested, integration testing is performed.
What is Top-Down Approach?
Testing takes place from top to bottom. High-level modules are tested first and then low-level
modules and finally integrating the low-level modules to a high level to ensure the system is
working as intended. Stubs are used as a temporary module if a module is not ready for
integration testing.

What is Bottom-Up Approach?

It is a reciprocate of the Top-Down Approach. Testing takes place from bottom to up. Lowest level
modules are tested first and then high-level modules and finally integrating the high-level modules
to a low level to ensure the system is working as intended. Drivers are used as a temporary
module for integration testing.
Advantages of integration testing:
 Integration testing provides a systematic technique for assembling a software system while
conducting tests to uncover errors associated with interfacing.
 The application is tested in order to verify that it meets the standards set by the client as well
as reassuring the development team that assumptions which were made during unit testing
are correct.
 Integration testing need not wait until all the modules of a system are coded and unit tested.
Instead, it can begin as soon as the relevant modules are available.
 Integration testing or incremental testing is necessary to verify whether the software modules
work in unity.
 System Integration testing includes a number of techniques like Incremental, Top- down,
Bottom –Up, Sandwich and Big Bang Integration techniques.

1.7 Interface testing

Interface Testing is defined as a software testing type which verifies whether the communication
between two different software systems is done correctly. A connection that integrates two
components is called interface. This interface in a computer world could be anything like API's,
web services, etc. Testing of these connecting services or interface is referred to as Interface
Testing. An interface is actually software that consists of sets of commands, messages, and other
attributes that enable communication between components. This testing ensures that end-users or
customer should not encounter any problem when using a particular software product.

1.8 Functional vs. Non-Functional Testing

Functional Testing
Functional testing is a type of testing which verifies that each function of the software application
operates in conformance with the requirement specification. This testing mainly involves black box
testing, and it is not concerned about the source code of the application. Every functionality of the
system is tested by providing appropriate input, verifying the output and comparing the actual
results with the expected results. This testing involves checking of User Interface, APIs, Database,
security, client/ server applications and functionality of the Application under Test. The testing can
be done either manually or using automation.
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Non-Functional Testing
Non-functional testing is a type of testing to check non-functional aspects (performance, usability,
reliability, etc.) of a software application. It is explicitly designed to test the readiness of a system
as per nonfunctional parameters which are never addressed by functional testing.
A good example of non-functional test would be to check how many people can simultaneously
login into a software.
Non-functional testing is equally important as functional testing and affects client satisfaction.
Functional Vs. Non-Functional Testing
Parameters Functional testing Non-functional testing
Execution It is performed before non- It is performed after the functional
functional testing. testing.
Focus area It is based on customer's It focuses on customer's expectation.
requirements.
Requirement It is easy to define functional It is difficult to define the requirements
requirements. for non-functional testing.
Usage Helps to validate the behavior of Helps to validate the performance of the
the application. application.
Objective Carried out to validate software It is done to validate the performance of
actions. the software.
Requirements Functional testing is carried out This kind of testing is carried out by
using the functional specification. performance specifications
Manual testing Functional testing is easy to It's very hard to perform non-functional
execute by manual testing. testing manually.
Functionality It describes what the product does. It describes how the product works.
Example Test Check login functionality. The dashboard should load in 2 seconds.
Case

1.9 Performance testing

Performance Testing is defined as a type of software testing to ensure software applications will
perform well under their expected workload.
Features and Functionality supported by a software system is not the only concern. A software
application's performance like its response time, reliability, resource usage and scalability do
matter. The goal of Performance Testing is not to find bugs but to eliminate performance
bottlenecks.
The focus of Performance Testing is checking a software program
 Speed - Determines whether the application responds quickly
 Scalability - Determines maximum user load the software application can handle.
 Stability - Determines if the application is stable under varying loads

1.10 Load testing

Load testing is a kind of Performance Testing which determines a system's performance under
real-life load conditions. This testing helps determine how the application behaves when multiple
users access it simultaneously.
This testing usually identifies -
 The maximum operating capacity of an application
 Determine whether the current infrastructure is sufficient to run the application
 Sustainability of application with respect to peak user load
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

 Number of concurrent users that an application can support, and scalability to allow more
users to access it.
It is a type of non-functional testing. In Software Engineering, Load testing is commonly used for the
Client/Server, Web-based applications - both Intranet and Internet.

1.11 Stress testing

Stress Testing is defined as a type of Software Testing that verified the stability & reliability of the
system. This test mainly determines the system on its robustness and error handling under
extremely heavy load conditions.
It even tests beyond the normal operating point and evaluates how the system works under those
extreme conditions. Stress Testing is done to make sure that the system would not crash under
crunch situations.

Difference between Load and Stress testing

Load Testing Stress Testing
Load Testing is to test the system Stress testing is to test the system behavior under
behavior under normal workload extreme conditions and is carried out till the
conditions, and it is just testing or system failure.
simulating with the actual workload
Load testing does not break the system Stress testing tries to break the system by testing
with overwhelming data or resources.

1.12 Recovery testing

Recovery testing is a type of non-functional testing technique performed in order to determine how
quickly the system can recover after it has gone through system crash or hardware failure.
Recovery testing is the forced failure of the software to verify if the recovery is successful.
The life cycle of the recovery process can be classified into the following five steps:
1. Normal operation
2. Disaster occurrence
3. Disruption and failure of the operation
4. Disaster clearance through the recovery process
5. Reconstruction of all processes and information to bring the whole system to move to normal
operation

1.13 Penetration testing

Penetration testing is also called pen testing or ethical hacking, is the practice of testing a
computer system, network or web application to find security vulnerabilities that an attacker could
exploit. Penetration testing can be automated with software applications or performed manually.
Either way, the process involves gathering information about the target before the test, identifying
possible entry points, attempting to break in -- either virtually or for real -- and reporting back the
findings.
The main objective of penetration testing is to identify security weaknesses. Penetration testing
can also be used to test an organization's security policy, its adherence to compliance
requirements, its employees' security awareness and the organization's ability to identify and
respond to security incidents.

1.14 Security testing

Security Testing is a type of Software Testing that uncovers vulnerabilities of the system and
determines that the data and resources of the system are protected from possible intruders. It
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ensures that the software system and application are free from any threats or risks that can cause
a loss. Security testing of any system is focuses on finding all possible loopholes and weaknesses
of the system which might result into the loss of information or repute of the organization.
The goal of security testing is to:
 To identify the threats in the system.
 To measure the potential vulnerabilities of the system.
 To help in detecting every possible security risks in the system.
 To help developers in fixing the security problems through coding.
Major Focus Areas in Security Testing:
 Network Security
 System Software Security
 Client-side Application Security
 Server-side Application Security

1.15 Compatibility testing

Compatibility Testing is a type of Software testing to check whether your software is capable of
running on different hardware, operating systems, applications, network environments
or Mobile devices. Compatibility Testing is a type of Non-functional testing.
For example, to test that the software runs successfully on operating systems like Windows, Unix,
Mac OS and in browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer etc.

1.16 Exploratory testing

Exploratory testing is all about discovery, investigation, and learning. It emphasizes personal
freedom and responsibility of the individual tester. It is defined as a type of testing where Test
cases are not created in advance but testers check system on the fly. They may note down ideas
about what to test before test execution. The focus of exploratory testing is more on testing as a
"thinking" activity.

1.17 Monkey testing

Monkey testing is a technique in software testing where the user tests the application by providing
random inputs and checking the behavior (or try to crash the application). Mostly this technique is
done automatically where the user enters any random invalid inputs and checks the behavior. As
said earlier, there are no rules; this technique does not follows any predefined test cases or
strategy and thus works on tester‘s mood and gut feeling.
Advantages of Monkey Testing:
 Can identify some out of the box errors.
 Easy to set up and execute
 Can be done by ―not so skilled‖ resources.
 A good technique to test the reliability of the software
 Can identify bugs which may have higher impact.
 Not costly

1.18 Ad hoc testing

Ad hoc testing is defined as an informal testing type with an aim to break the system. This
Software Testing type is usually an unplanned activity. It does not follow any test design
techniques to create test cases. In fact it does not create test cases altogether!
Ad hoc Testing does not follow any structured way of testing and it is randomly done on any part
of application. Main aim of this testing is to find defects by random checking. Ad hoc testing can
be achieved with the Software testing technique called Error Guessing. Error guessing can be
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done by the people having enough experience on the system to "guess" the most likely source of
errors.
In Software Engineering, Ad-hoc Testing saves lot of time as it doesn't require elaborate test
planning, documentation and Test Case design.

1.19 Accessibility testing

Accessibility Testing is defined as a type of Software Testing performed to ensure that the
application being tested is usable by people with disabilities like hearing, color blindness, old age
and other disadvantaged groups. It is a subset of Usability Testing.
People with disabilities use assistive technology which helps them in operating a software product.
Examples of such software are:
 Speech Recognition Software - It will convert the spoken word to text, which serves as input
to the computer.
 Screen reader software - Used to read out the text that is displayed on the screen
 Screen Magnification Software- Used to enlarge the monitor and make reading easy for
vision-impaired users.
 Special keyboard made for the users for easy typing who have motor control difficulties

1.20 Usability testing

Usability Testing is defined as a type of software testing where a small set of target end-users, of a
software system, "use" it to expose usability defects. This testing mainly focuses on the user's
ease to use the application, flexibility in handling controls and the ability of the system to meet its
objectives. It is also called User Experience (UX) Testing.

1.21 Acceptance testing

Acceptance Testing is a level of software testing where a system is tested for acceptability. The
purpose of this test is to evaluate the system‘s compliance with the business requirements and
assess whether it is acceptable for delivery.
It is formal testing with respect to user needs, requirements, and business processes conducted to
determine whether or not a system satisfies the acceptance criteria and to enable the user,
customers or other authorized entity to determine whether or not to accept the system.

1.22 Alpha and Beta testing

Alpha Testing
Alpha testing is a type of acceptance testing; performed to identify all possible issues/bugs before
releasing the product to everyday users or the public. The focus of this testing is to simulate real
users by using a black box and white box techniques. The aim is to carry out the tasks that a
typical user might perform. To put it as simple as possible, this kind of testing is called alpha only
because it is done early on, near the end of the development of the software, and before beta
testing.
Beta Testing
Beta Testing of a product is performed by "real users" of the software application in a "real
environment" and can be considered as a form of external User Acceptance Testing.
Beta version of the software is released to a limited number of end-users of the product to obtain
feedback on the product quality. Beta testing reduces product failure risks and provides increased
quality of the product through customer validation.
It is the final test before shipping a product to the customers. Direct feedback from customers is a
major advantage of Beta Testing. This testing helps to tests the product in customer's
environment.
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Alpha Testing Beta Testing

Alpha testing performed by Testers who are usually internal employees of the Beta testing is performed by Clients or End Users who are not employees of the
organization organization

Alpha Testing performed at developer's site Beta testing is performed at a client location or end user of the product

Reliability and Security Testing are not performed in-depth Alpha Testing Reliability, Security, Robustness are checked during Beta Testing

Alpha testing involves both the white box and black box techniques Beta Testing typically uses Black Box Testing

Alpha testing requires a lab environment or testing environment Beta testing doesn't require any lab environment or testing environment. The software
is made available to the public and is said to be real time environment

Long execution cycle may be required for Alpha testing Only a few weeks of execution are required for Beta testing

Critical issues or fixes can be addressed by developers immediately in Alpha Most of the issues or feedback is collected from Beta testing will be implemented in
testing future versions of the product

Alpha testing is to ensure the quality of the product before moving to Beta testing Beta testing also concentrates on the quality of the product, but gathers users input on
the product and ensures that the product is ready for real time users.

1.23 Positive and Negative testing

Positive testing is the type of testing that can be performed on the system by providing the valid
data as input. It checks whether an application behaves as expected with positive inputs. This test
is done to check the application that does what it is supposed to do.
Negative Testing is a variant of testing that can be performed on the system by providing invalid
data as input. It checks whether an application behaves as expected with the negative inputs. This
is to test the application does not do anything that it is not supposed to do so.
Following techniques are used for Positive and negative validation of testing is:
Boundary Value Analysis:
This is one of the software testing technique in which the test cases are designed to include
values at the boundary. If the input data is used within the boundary value limits, then it is said to
be Positive Testing. If the input data is picked outside the boundary value limits, then it is said to
be Negative Testing.
Equivalence Partitioning:
This is a software testing technique which divides the input data into many partitions. Values from
each partition must be tested at least once. Partitions with valid values are used for Positive
Testing. While partitions with invalid values are used for negative testing.
Testing helps deliver quality software application and ensures the software is bug-free before the
software is launched. For effective testing, use both - Positive and Negative testing which give
enough confidence in the quality of the software.

1.24 Dynamic and Static Testing

Under Static Testing, code is not executed. Rather it manually checks the code, requirement
documents, and design documents to find errors. Hence, the name "static".
The main objective of this testing is to improve the quality of software products by finding errors in

the early stages of the development cycle. This testing is also called a Non-execution technique or
verification testing.
Static testing involves manual or automated reviews of the documents. This review is done during
an initial phase of testing to catch Defect early in STLC. It examines work documents and
provides review comments.
Under Dynamic Testing, the code is executed. It checks for functional behavior of software
system, memory/CPU usage and overall performance of the system. Hence the name "Dynamic"
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The main objective of this testing is to confirm that the software product works in conformance
with the business requirements. This testing is also called an Execution technique or validation
testing.
Static Testing Dynamic Testing
Testing was done without executing the
program Testing is done by executing the program

This testing does the verification process Dynamic testing does the validation process
Dynamic testing is about finding and fixing the
Static testing is about prevention of defects defects

Static testing gives an assessment of code and Dynamic testing gives bugs/bottlenecks in the
documentation software system.

Static testing involves a checklist and process

to be followed Dynamic testing involves test cases for execution
This testing can be performed before
compilation Dynamic testing is performed after compilation
Static testing covers the structural and Dynamic testing covers the executable file of the
statement coverage testing code

Cost of finding defects and fixing is less Cost of finding and fixing defects is high

Return on investment will be high as this Return on investment will be low as this process
process involved at an early stage involves after the development phase

More reviews comments are highly More defects are highly recommended for good
recommended for good quality quality.

Requires loads of meetings Comparatively requires lesser meetings

1.25 Black box, White box and Gray box testing

Black box testing
Black box testing is defined as a testing technique in which functionality of the Application Under
Test (AUT) is tested without looking at the internal code structure, implementation details and
knowledge of internal paths of the software. In Black Box Testing we just focus on inputs and
output of the software system without bothering about internal knowledge of the software program.
White box testing
White Box Testing is defined as the testing of a software solution's internal structure, design, and
coding. In this type of testing, the code is visible to the tester. It focuses primarily on verifying the
flow of inputs and outputs through the application, improving design and usability, strengthening
security. White box testing is also known as Clear Box testing, Open Box testing, Structural
testing, Transparent Box testing, Code-Based testing, and Glass Box testing. It is usually
performed by developers.
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Black Box Testing White Box Testing

The main focus of black box testing is on White Box Testing (Unit Testing) validates
the validation of your functional internal structure and working of your
requirements. software code

Black box testing gives abstraction from To conduct White Box Testing, knowledge of
code and focuses on testing effort on the underlying programming language is
software system behavior. essential. Current day software systems use a
variety of programming languages and
technologies and it‟s not possible to know all
of them.

Black box testing facilitates testing White box testing does not facilitate testing
communication amongst modules communication amongst modules

Grey box testing

Gray Box Testing is a software testing technique which is a combination of Black Box
Testing technique and White Box Testing technique. In Black Box Testing technique, tester is
unknown to the internal structure of the item being tested and in White Box Testing the internal
structure is known to tester. The internal structure is partially known in Gray Box Testing. This
includes access to internal data structures and algorithms for purpose of designing the test cases.
Gray Box Testing is named so because the software program is like a semitransparent or grey box
inside which tester can partially see. It commonly focuses on context-specific errors related to web
systems.

1.26 Equivalence Partitioning and Boundary Value Analysis

Boundary value analysis and equivalence partitioning both are test case design strategies in black
box testing.
Equivalence Partitioning:
In this method, the input domain data is divided into different equivalence data classes. This
method is typically used to reduce the total number of test cases to a finite set of testable test
cases, still covering maximum requirements.
In short, it is the process of taking all possible test cases and placing them into classes. One test
value is picked from each class while testing.
E.g.: If you are testing for an input box accepting numbers from 1 to 1000 then there is no use in
writing thousand test cases for all 1000 valid input numbers plus other test cases for invalid data.
Using equivalence partitioning method above test cases can be divided into three sets of input
data called as classes. Each test case is a representative of a respective class.
So in above example, we can divide our test cases into three equivalence classes of some valid
and invalid inputs.
Test cases for input box accepting numbers between 1 and 1000 using Equivalence Partitioning:
1) One input data class with all valid inputs. Pick a single value from range 1 to 1000 as a valid
test case. If you select other values between 1 and 1000 the result is going to be same. So one
test case for valid input data should be sufficient.
2) Input data class with all values below the lower limit. I.e. any value below 1, as an invalid input
data test case.
3) Input data with any value greater than 1000 to represent third invalid input class.
So using equivalence partitioning you have categorized all possible test cases into three classes.
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Test cases with other values from any class should give you the same result.
We have selected one representative from every input class to design our test cases. Test case
values are selected in such a way that largest number of attributes of equivalence class can be
exercised.
Equivalence partitioning uses fewest test cases to cover maximum requirements.
Boundary value analysis:
It's widely recognized that input values at the extreme ends of input domain cause more errors in
the system. More application errors occur at the boundaries of input domain. ‗Boundary value
analysis' testing technique is used to identify errors at boundaries rather than finding those exist in
center of input domain.
Boundary value analysis is the next part of Equivalence partitioning for designing test cases where
test cases are selected at the edges of the equivalence classes.
Test cases for input box accepting numbers between 1 and 1000 using Boundary value analysis:
1) Test cases with test data exactly as the input boundaries of input domain i.e. values 1 and 1000
in our case.
2) Test data with values just below the extreme edges of input domains i.e. values 0 and 999.

3) Test data with values just above the extreme edges of input domain i.e. values 2 and 1001.
Boundary value analysis is often called as a part of stress and negative testing.

1.27 Database testing

Basically, database testing is a layered process. Database systems usually consist of four layers:
the user interface (UI) layer, the business layer, the data access layer and the database
itself. Testing at these different layers is important for a consistent database system.
Database testing is one of the major testing which requires tester to expertise in checking tables,
writing queries and procedures. Testing can be performed in web application or desktop and
database can be used in the application like SQL or Oracle. There are many projects like banking,
finance, health insurance which requires extensive database testing.
Database testing basically include the following:

1. Data validity testing.

2. Data Integrity testing
3. Performance related to data base.
4. Testing of Procedure, triggers and functions.
 For doing data validity testing one should be good in SQL queries.
 For data integrity testing one should know about referential integrity and different constraint.
 For performance related things one should have idea about the table structure and design.
 For testing Procedure triggers and functions one should be able to understand the same.

1.28 Experience based testing

The experience based testing technique is based on the skill and experience of the testers,
experts, users etc. It is conducted in an Ad-hoc manner because proper specifications are not
available to test the applications. Here the tester depends on the past experiences with same
technologies. The tester as per his experience focuses on the important areas of the software like-
the areas mostly used by the customer or the areas most likely to be failed. This kind of testing is
done even when there is no specification or have inadequate specification list.
The different types of experience based techniques are:
 Error guessing techniques
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 Exploratory Techniques
 Checklist based testing
Some of the expected situations to use experience based techniques are
 Non –availability of requirements and specifications.
 Limited knowledge of software product
 Inadequate specification
 Restricted amount of time
All the members in the IT team can involve in experience based testing
1.29 Web Vs Desktop Testing
Desktop testing - Desktop application runs on work stations and personal computers, so in case
you test the desktop application you are concentrating on a particular environment. You will test
entire application widely in such categories as GUI, functionality, backend i.e. DB and Load.
Client-server testing - You have 2 various components to test in client server application. An
Application is loaded on server machine meanwhile the application exe on each client machine.
You will broadly test in such categories as GUI on both sides, Load, functionality, backend, client-
server interaction. This environment for the most part is used in Intranet networks. You are
informed about number of servers and locations and clients in the test scenario.

Web application testing - Application is loaded on the server and there is no exe installed on the
client machine, you are required to test it on various web browsers. It is probable that web
applications are to be tested on different OS platforms and browsers so, broadly speaking; web
application is tested chiefly for system compatibility and browser compatibility, static pages, load
testing, error handling and backend testing.

2 Quality assurance and Quality Control

2.1 Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance is popularly known as QA. QA focuses on improving the processes to deliver
Quality Products to the customer. An organization has to ensure, that processes are efficient and
effective as per the quality standards defined for software products.

2.2 Quality Control

Quality control popularly abbreviated as QC. It is a Software Engineering process used to ensure
quality in a product or a service. It does not deal with the processes used to create a product;
rather it examines the quality of the "end products" and the final outcome.

Difference between quality assurance and quality control

Quality Assurance (QA) Quality Control (QC)
It is a procedure that focuses on providing It is a procedure that focuses on fulfilling the
assurance that quality requested will be quality requested.
achieved
QA aims to prevent the defect QC aims to identify and fix defects
It is a method to manage the quality- It is a method to verify the quality-
Verification Validation

It does not involve executing the program It always involves executing a program

It's a Preventive technique It's a Corrective technique

It's a Proactive measure It's a Reactive measure
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It is the procedure to create the deliverables It is the procedure to verify that deliverables
QA involves in full software development life QC involves in full software testing life
cycle cycle

In order to meet the customer requirements, QA QC confirms that the standards are followed
defines standards and methodologies while working on the product

It is performed before Quality Control It is performed only after QA activity is

done

It is a Low-Level Activity, it can identify an It is a High-Level Activity, it can identify an

error and mistakes which QC cannot error that QA cannot

Its main motive is to prevent defects in the Its main motive is to identify defects or bugs
system. It is a less time-consuming activity in the system. It is a more time-consuming
activity

QA ensures that everything is executed in the QC ensures that whatever we have done is
right way, and that is why it falls under as per the requirement, and that is why it
verification activity falls under validation activity

It requires the involvement of the whole team It requires the involvement of the Testing
team

2.3 Software Quality

Quality is simply stated: "Fit for use or purpose." It is all about meeting the needs and
expectations of customers with respect to functionality, design, reliability, durability, & price of the
product.
Software quality: The totality of functionality and features of a software product that bear on its
ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
Software quality is the characteristic of the software that defines how well the software meets the
customer requirements, business requirements, coding standards etc. It can be divided into two
categories:
Software Functional Quality: characteristics that define how well the software meets functional
requirements, and how well it satisfies the end-users.
Software Non-Functional Quality: characteristics that define how well structural requirements
are met that support the delivery of functional requirements. It is usually related to software code
and internal structure.

2.4 Software Quality Parameters

Following are the different attributes (parameters) that are used to measure the software quality:
Testability – How easy it is to test the software and to what extent it can be tested.
Usability – It defines how user friendly the software is.
Maintainability – How easily the software can be maintained in terms of enhancements/new
features/bug fixes.
Reliability – How reliable the software is in performing required functions under different
scenarios/conditions.
Portability – How easily the software can be transported and run in different environments e.g.
platforms like operating systems (Linux, Mac, Windows), machines it can run on.
Security – How secured the software is in terms of access authorization and personal data like
passwords.
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Robustness – How robust the software is under unexpected events like software crash, power-off
etc. and saves its data.
Consistency – How far the software is consistent / uniform in terms of GUI, terminologies,
conventions.
Efficiency – It defines the amount of work that the software can do in defined timeframe with
minimum resources used.
Effectiveness – The extent to which the software satisfies the user and meets user requirements
Accuracy – How accurately the software works with gives the correct results.

2.5 Software Testing

Software testing is a process, to evaluate the functionality of a software application with an intent
to find whether the developed software met the specified requirements or not and to identify the
defects to ensure that the product is defect free in order to produce the quality product.
Software testing also helps to identify errors, gaps or missing requirements in contrary to the
actual requirements. It can be either done manually or using automated tools.
In simple terms, Software Testing means Verification of Application under Test (AUT).

Why is Software Testing Important?

Testing is important because software bugs could be expensive or even dangerous. Software
bugs can potentially cause monetary and human loss, and history is full of such examples.
 Some of the Amazon‘s third party retailers saw their product price is reduced to 1p due to a
software glitch. They were left with heavy losses.
 China Airlines Airbus A300 crashed due to a software bug on April 26, 1994, killing 264
innocent live
 In 1985, Canada's Therac-25 radiation therapy machine malfunctioned due to software bug
and delivered lethal radiation doses to patients, leaving 3 people dead and critically injuring
3 others.
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2.6 Verification and Validation

Criteria Verification Validation

Definition The process of evaluating work- The process of evaluating software during
products (not the actual final product) or at the end of the development process to
of a development phase to determine determine whether it satisfies specified
whether they meet the specified business requirements.
requirements for that phase.

Objective To ensure that the product is being built To ensure that the product actually meets
according to the requirements and the user‟s needs and that the specifications
design specifications. In other words, were correct in the first place. In other
to ensure that work products meet their words, to demonstrate that the product
specified requirements. fulfills its intended use when placed in its
intended environment.
Question Are we building the product right? Are we building the right product?

Evaluation Plans, Requirement Specs, Design The actual product/software.

Items Specs, Code, Test Cases

Activities  Reviews  Testing

 Walkthroughs

 Inspections

Verification Vs Validation: Key Difference

Verification Validation
The verifying process includes checking It is a dynamic mechanism of testing
documents, design, code, and program and validating the actual product
It does not involve executing the code It always involves executing the code
Verification uses methods like reviews, It uses methods like Black Box Testing, White
walkthroughs, inspections, and desk- checking Box Testing, and non-functional testing
etc.
Whether the software conforms to specification is It checks whether the software meets the
checked requirements and expectations of a customer
It finds bugs early in the development cycle It can find bugs that the verification process
cannot catch
Target is application and software architecture, Target is an actual product
specification, complete design, high level, and
database design etc.
QA team does verification and make sure that the With the involvement of testing team validation
software is as per the requirement in the SRS is executed on software code.
document.
It comes before validation It comes after verification
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2.7 Requirement Traceability Matrix

Requirement Traceability Matrix or RTM captures all requirements proposed by the client or
software development team and their traceability in a single document delivered at the conclusion
of the life-cycle.
In other words, it is a document that maps and traces user requirement with test cases. The main
purpose of Requirement Traceability Matrix is to see that all test cases are covered so that no
functionality should miss while doing Software testing.
Why RTM is Important?
The main agenda of every tester should be to understand the client‘s requirement and make sure
that the output product should be defect-free. To achieve this goal, every QA should understand
the requirement thoroughly and create positive and negative test cases.
This would mean that the software requirements provided by the client have to be further split into
different scenarios and further to test cases. Each of this case has to be executed individually.
A question arises here on how to make sure that the requirement is tested considering all possible
scenarios/cases? How to ensure that any requirement is not left out of the testing cycle?
A simple way is to trace the requirement with its corresponding test scenarios and test cases. This
is achieved through ‗Requirement Traceability Matrix.'
The traceability matrix is typically a worksheet that contains the requirements with its all possible
test scenarios and cases and their current state, i.e. if they have been passed or failed. This would
help the testing team to understand the level of testing activities done for the specific product.
Parameters to include in Requirement Traceability Matrix
 Requirement ID
 Requirement Type and Description
 Test Cases with Status

2.8 Defect lifecycle

Defect Life Cycle or Bug Life Cycle is the specific set of states that a Bug goes through from
discovery to defect fixation.
Bug Life Cycle Status
The number of states that a defect goes through varies from project to project. Below lifecycle
diagram, covers all possible states
 New: When a new defect is logged and posted for the first time. It is assigned a status as
NEW.
 Assigned: Once the bug is posted by the tester, the lead of the tester approves the bug and
assigns the bug to the developer team
 Open: The developer starts analyzing and works on the defect fix
 Fixed: When a developer makes a necessary code change and verifies the change, he or
she can make bug status as "Fixed."
 Retest: Tester does the retesting of the code at this stage to check whether the defect is
fixed by the developer or not and changes the status to "Re-test."
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


 Verified: The tester re-tests the bug after it got fixed by the developer. If there is no bug
detected in the software, then the bug is fixed and the status assigned is "verified."
 Reopen: If the bug persists even after the developer has fixed the bug, the tester changes
the status to "reopened". Once again the bug goes through the life cycle.
 Closed: If the bug is no longer exists then tester assigns the status "Closed."
 Duplicate: If the defect is repeated twice or the defect corresponds to the same concept of
the bug, the status is changed to "duplicate."
 Rejected: If the developer feels the defect is not a genuine defect then it changes the defect
to "rejected."
 Deferred: If the present bug is not of a prime priority and if it is expected to get fixed in the
next release, then status "Deferred" is assigned to such bugs
 Not a bug: If it does not affect the functionality of the application then the status assigned to
a bug is "Not a bug".

2.9 Difference between severity and priority of a defect

Severity is defined as the degree of impact a Defect has on the development or operation of a
component application being tested.
Higher effect on the system functionality will lead to the assignment of higher severity to the
bug. Quality Assurance engineer usually determines the severity level of defect.
Priority is defined as the order in which a defect should be fixed. Higher the priority the sooner
the defect should be resolved.
Generally, defects that leave the software system unusable are given higher priority over defects
that cause a small functionality of the software to fail.
Defect Severity and Priority Types
In Software Testing, Defect severity can be categorized into four classes
 Critical: This defect indicates complete shut-down of the process, nothing can proceed
further
 Major: It is a highly severe defect and collapses the system. However, certain parts of the
system remain functional
 Medium: It causes some undesirable behavior, but the system is still functional
 Low: It won't cause any major break-down of the system
Defect priority can be categorized into three classes
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 Low: The Defect is an irritant but repair can be done once the more serious Defect has been
fixed
 Medium: During the normal course of the development activities defect should be resolved.
It can wait until a new version is created
 High: The defect must be resolved as soon as possible as it affects the system severely and
cannot be used until it is fixed
Priority Vs Severity: Key Difference
Priority Severity
 Defect Priority has defined the order  Defect Severity is defined as the degree
in which the developer should of impact that a defect has on the
resolve a defect operation of the product
 Priority is categorized into three types  Severity is categorized into five types
o Low o Critical
o Medium o Major
o High o Moderate
o Minor
o Cosmetic
 Priority is associated with scheduling  Severity is associated with functionality
or standards
 Priority indicates how soon the bug  Severity indicates the seriousness of the
should be fixed defect on the product functionality
 Priority of defects is decided in  QA engineer determines the severity
consultation with the manager/client level of the defect
 Priority is driven by business value  Severity is driven by functionality
 Its value is subjective and can change  Its value is objective and less likely to
over a period of time depending on change
the change in the project situation
 High priority and low severity status  High severity and low priority status
indicates, defect have to be fixed on indicates defect have to be fixed but
immediate bases but does not affect not on immediate bases
the application
 Priority status is based on customer  Severity status is based on the technical
requirements aspect of the product
 During UAT the development team fix  During SIT, the development team will
defects based on priority fix defects based on the severity and
then priority

2.10 Difference between Test scenario, Test case and a Test script
Test Case VS Test Scenario
A test case is a set of conditions for evaluation a particular feature of a software product to determine its
compliance with the business requirements.
A Test Case is a set of actions executed to verify a particular feature or functionality of your software
application. The Test Case has a set test data, precondition, certain expected and actual results developed for
specific test scenario to verify any requirement.
A test case includes specific variables or conditions, using which a test engineer can determine as to whether a
software product is functioning as per the requirements of the client or the customer.
Whereas, a test scenario is generally a one line statement describing a feature of application to be tested. It is
used for end to end testing of a feature and is generally derived from the use cases.

Let's now see the difference between the two -

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# Test Case Test Scenario

A test case contains clearly defined A test scenario contains a high level
1. test steps for testing a feature of an documentation, describing an end to end
application. functionality to be tested.
Test cases focus on "what to test"
2. Test scenarios just focus on "what to test".
and "how to test".
Test cases have clearly defined step, Test scenarios are generally one-liner. Hence,
3. pre-requisites, expected results etc. there is always possibility of ambiguity
Hence, there is no ambiguity. during testing.
Test cases can be derived from test
4. scenarios and have many to one Test scenarios are derived from use cases.
relationship with them.
Test cases are efficient in exhaustive Test scenarios are beneficial in quick testing
5. testing of application. of end to end functionality of the application.
More resources are required for Relatively less time and resources are
6. documentation and execution of test required for creating and testing using
cases. scenarios.
Description of the test case
Test case ID: The ID of the test case
Test case description: The objective or summary of the test case
Any preconditions which need to be executed before starting
Prerequisites:
the test
Test steps: Procedure to execute the test
Test data: Data required while executing the test
Expected Result: The expected output of the test
Actual Result: The actual output of the test
Pass, Fail, „Not executed‟ when test case is not executed and
Status:
„Blocked‟ when high severity bug is found
Created By: Name of the person who wrote the test case
Date of creation: The date on which the test case was authored
Executed By: Name of the person who ran or executed the test case
Date of execution: The date on which the test case was executed
Test Script
A TEST SCRIPT is a set of instructions (written using a scripting/programming language) that is performed on
a system under test to verify that the system performs as expected. Test scripts are used in automated testing.
Sometimes, a set of instructions (written in a human language), used in manual testing, is also called a Test
Script but a better term for that would be a Test Case.
Some scripting languages used in automated testing are:
 JavaScript
 Perl
 Python
 Ruby
 VBScript

2.11 What is Test Suite?

Test Suite is a collection of test cases. The test cases which are intended to test an application.

2.12 What is test coverage?

Test coverage helps in measuring the amount of testing performed by a set of tests.
Test coverage can be done on both functional and non-functional activities. It assists testers to
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create tests that cover areas which are missing.

2.13 What is Test Bed?

An environment configured for testing. Test bed consists of hardware, software, network
configuration, an application under test and other related software.

2.14 Difference between Use case and Test case

COMPARISON
PARAMETER USE CASE TEST CASE
A sequential actions which A Group of test inputs,
is use to describe the conditions and variables by
interaction among the role and which the characteristics of
system to maintain a the
Definition specified objective, software is defined.
To reach the last operation
follow all sequential operation Validating the software as it
Goal is working fine or not.
it follows single test case is
Iteration it follows different paths tested at a time
it is dependent on the it is dependent over the use
Dependency requirements case
Test inputs scripts and each
Documents and research is test scripts complete one
Requirement required step
The testing is done again
Completion complete all step once and again then finish.
Interaction User Results
it is working as following the it is working with the help
step by step function ability of of testers to validate the
Working the software. software
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2.15 Difference between build and release

The main difference between Build and Release in Software Testing is that Build is a version of a
software the development team hands over to the testing team for testing purposes while Release
is a software the testing team hands over to the customer.
Build
After developing the software module, developers convert the source codes into a standalone
form or an executable code. Then the development team hands over the build to the testing team
to perform testing. Build is in the testing phase; it may have already undergone testing or
not. Software testing team checks this build. If it consists of multiple bugs and if it does not meet
the requirements, then the software testing team rejects that build. Builds occur prior to the
release, and they are generated more frequently.
Release
The release is the final application after completing development and testing. After testing the
build, the testing team certifies that software and delivers it to the customer. It is possible for one
release to have several builds. Therefore, it is the software delivered to the customer after
completing the development and testing phases. Moreover, the release is based on builds, and it
can have several builds.

2.16 Seven Principles of Software Testing

1. Testing Shows Presence of Defects:
Testing shows the presence of defects in the software. The goal of testing is to make the software
fail. Sufficient testing reduces the presence of defects. In case testers are unable to find defects
after repeated regression testing doesn‘t mean that the software is bug-free.
Testing talks about the presence of defects and don‘t talk about the absence of defects.
2. Exhaustive Testing is Impossible:
What is Exhaustive Testing?
Testing all the functionalities using all valid and invalid inputs and preconditions is known as
Exhaustive testing.
Why it‘s impossible to achieve Exhaustive Testing?
Assume we have to test an input field which accepts age between 18 to 20 so we do test the field
using 18,19 and 20. In case the same input field accepts the range between 18 to 100 then we
have to test using inputs such as 18, 19, 20, 21, …., 99, 100. It‘s a basic example, you may think
that you could achieve it using automation tool. Imagine the same field accepts some billion
values. It‘s impossible to test all possible values due to release time constraints.
If we keep on testing all possible test conditions then the software execution time and costs will
rise. So instead of doing exhaustive testing, risks and priorities will be taken into consideration
whilst doing testing and estimating testing efforts.
3. Early Testing:
Defects detected in early phases of SDLC are less expensive to fix. So conducting early testing
reduces the cost of fixing defects.
Assume two scenarios, first one is you have identified an incorrect requirement in the requirement
gathering phase and the second one is you have identified a bug in the fully developed
functionality. It is cheaper to change the incorrect requirement compared to fixing the fully
developed functionality which is not working as intended.
4. Defect Clustering:
Defect Clustering in software testing means that a small module or functionality contains most of
the bugs or it has the most operational failures.
As per the Pareto Principle (80-20 Rule), 80% of issues comes from 20% of modules and remaining
20% of issues from remaining 80% of modules. So we do emphasize testing on the 20% of
modules where we face 80% of bugs.
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5. Pesticide Paradox:
Pesticide Paradox in software testing is the process of repeating the same test cases again and
again, eventually, the same test cases will no longer find new bugs. So to overcome this Pesticide
Paradox, it is necessary to review the test cases regularly and add or update them to find more
defects.
6. Testing is Context Dependent:
Testing approach depends on the context of the software we develop. We do test the software
differently in different contexts. For example, online banking application requires a different
approach of testing compared to an e-commerce site.
7. Absence of Error – Fallacy:
99% of bug-free software may still be unusable, if wrong requirements were incorporated into the
software and the software is not addressing the business needs.
The software which we built not only be a 99% bug-free software but also it must fulfill the
business needs otherwise it will become an unusable software.

3 Software Development Models

3.1 What is SDLC
The Software Development Lifecycle is a systematic process for building software that ensures
and correctness of the software built. SDLC process aims to produce high-quality software which
meets customer expectations. The software development should be complete in the pre-defined
time frame and cost the quality
SDLC consists of a detailed plan which explains how to plan, build, and maintain specific
software. Every phase of the SDLC lifecycle has its own process and deliverables that feed into
the next phase.

3.1.1 SDLC Phases

The entire SDLC process divided into the following stages:
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 Phase 1: Requirement collection and analysis

 Phase 2: Design:
 Phase 3: Coding/implementation
 Phase 4: Testing:
 Phase 5: Installation/Deployment:
 Phase 6: Maintenance
Requirement collection and analysis:
During this phase, all the relevant information is collected from the customer to develop a product
as per their expectation. Any ambiguities must be resolved in this phase only.
Business analyst and Project Manager set up a meeting with the customer to gather all the
information like what the customer wants to build, who will be the end-user, what is the purpose of
the product. Before building a product a core understanding or knowledge of the product is very
important.
For Example, A customer wants to have an application which involves money transactions. In this
case, the requirement has to be clear like what kind of transactions will be done, how it will be
done, in which currency it will be done, etc.
Once the requirement gathering is done, an analysis is done to check the feasibility of the
development of a product. In case of any ambiguity, a call is set up for further discussion.
Once the requirement is clearly understood, the SRS (Software Requirement Specification)
document is created. This document should be thoroughly understood by the developers and also
should be reviewed by the customer for future reference.
Design:
In this phase, the requirement gathered in the SRS document is used as an input and software
architecture that is used for implementing system development is derived.
Coding:
Implementation/Coding starts once the developer gets the Design document. The Software design
is translated into source code. All the components of the software are implemented in this phase.

Testing:
Testing starts once the coding is complete and the modules are released for testing. In this phase,
the developed software is tested thoroughly and any defects found are assigned to developers to
get them fixed.
Retesting, regression testing is done until the point at which the software is as per the customer‘s
expectation. Testers refer SRS document to make sure that the software is as per the customer‘s
standard.
Installation/Deployment:
Once the product is tested, it is deployed in the production environment or first UAT (User
Acceptance testing) is done depending on the customer expectation.
In the case of UAT, a replica of the production environment is created and the customer along with
the developers does the testing. If the customer finds the application as expected, then sign off is
provided by the customer to go live.
Maintenance:
After the deployment of a product on the production environment, maintenance of the product i.e.
if any issue comes up and needs to be fixed or any enhancement is to be done is taken care by
the developers.

3.2 SDLC Models

A software life cycle model is a descriptive representation of the software development cycle.
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SDLC models might have a different approach but the basic phases and activity remain the same
for all the models.

Waterfall Model
Waterfall model is the very first model that is used in SDLC. It is also known as the linear
sequential model.
In this model, the outcome of one phase is the input for the next phase. Development of the next
phase starts only when the previous phase is complete.
 First, Requirement gathering and analysis is done. Once the requirement is freeze then only
the System Design can start. Herein, the SRS document created is the output for the
Requirement phase and it acts as an input for the System Design.
 In System Design Software architecture and Design, documents which act as an input for the
next phase are created i.e. Implementation and coding.
 In the Implementation phase, coding is done and the software developed is the input for the
next phase i.e. testing.
 In the testing phase, the developed code is tested thoroughly to detect the defects in the
software. Defects are logged into the defect tracking tool and are retested once fixed. Bug
logging, Retest, Regression testing goes on until the time the software is in go-live state.
 In the Deployment phase, the developed code is moved into production after the sign off is
given by the customer.
 Any issues in the production environment are resolved by the developers which come under
maintenance.
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Advantages of the Waterfall Model:

 Waterfall model is the simple model which can be easily understood and is the one in which
all the phases are done step by step.
 Deliverables of each phase are well defined, and this leads to no complexity and makes the
project easily manageable.
Disadvantages of Waterfall model:
 Waterfall model is time-consuming & cannot be used in the short duration projects as in this
model a new phase cannot be started until the ongoing phase is completed.
 Waterfall model cannot be used for the projects which have uncertain requirement or wherein
the requirement keeps on changing as this model expects the requirement to be clear in
the requirement gathering and analysis phase itself and any change in the later stages
would lead to cost higher as the changes would be required in all the phases.

V- Shaped Model
V- Model is also known as Verification and Validation Model. In this model Verification & Validation
goes hand in hand i.e. development and testing goes parallel. V model and waterfall model are
the same except that the test planning and testing start at an early stage in V-Model.

a) Verification Phase:
(i) Requirement Analysis:
In this phase, all the required information is gathered & analyzed. Verification activities include
reviewing the requirements.
(ii) System Design:
Once the requirement is clear, a system is designed i.e. architecture, components of the product
are created and documented in a design document.
(iii) High-Level Design:
High-level design defines the architecture/design of modules. It defines the functionality between
the two modules.
(iv) Low-Level Design:
Low-level Design defines the architecture/design of individual components.
(v) Coding:
Code development is done in this phase.
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b) Validation Phase:
(i) Unit Testing:
Unit testing is performed using the unit test cases that are designed and is done in the Low-level
design phase. Unit testing is performed by the developer itself. It is performed on individual
components which lead to early defect detection.
(ii) Integration Testing:
Integration testing is performed using integration test cases in High-level Design phase.
Integration testing is the testing that is done on integrated modules. It is performed by testers.
(iii) System Testing:
System testing is performed in the System Design phase. In this phase, the complete system is
tested i.e. the entire system functionality is tested.
(iv) Acceptance Testing:
Acceptance testing is associated with the Requirement Analysis phase and is done in the
customer‘s environment.
Advantages of V – Model:
 It is a simple and easily understandable model.
 V –model approach is good for smaller projects wherein the requirement is defined and it
freezes in the early stage.
 It is a systematic and disciplined model which results in a high-quality product.
Disadvantages of V-Model:
 V-shaped model is not good for ongoing projects.
 Requirement change at the later stage would cost too high.

Prototype Model
The prototype model is a model in which the prototype is developed prior to the actual software.
Prototype models have limited functional capabilities and inefficient performance when compared
to the actual software. Dummy functions are used to create prototypes. This is a valuable
mechanism for understanding the customers‘ needs.
Software

prototypes are built prior to the actual software to get valuable feedback from the customer.
Feedbacks are implemented and the prototype is again reviewed by the customer for
any change. This process goes on until the model is accepted by the customer.
Once the requirement gathering is done, the quick design is created and the prototype which is
presented to the customer for evaluation is built.
Customer feedback and the refined requirement is used to modify the prototype and is again
presented to the customer for evaluation. Once the customer approves the prototype, it is used as
a requirement for building the actual software. The actual software is build using the Waterfall
model approach.
Advantages of Prototype Model:
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 Prototype model reduces the cost and time of development as the defects are found much
earlier.
 Missing feature or functionality or a change in requirement can be identified in the evaluation
phase and can be implemented in the refined prototype.
 Involvement of a customer from the initial stage reduces any confusion in the requirement or
understanding of any functionality.
Disadvantages of Prototype Model:
 Since the customer is involved in every phase, the customer can change the requirement of
the end product which increases the complexity of the scope and may increase the delivery
time of the product.

Spiral Model
The Spiral Model includes iterative and prototype approach.
Spiral model phases are followed in the iterations. The loops in the model represent the phase of
the SDLC process i.e. the innermost loop is of requirement gathering & analysis which follows the
Planning, Risk analysis, development, and evaluation. Next loop is designing followed by
Implementation & then testing.
Spiral Model has four phases:
 Planning
 Risk Analysis
 Engineering
 Evaluation

(i) Planning:
The planning phase includes requirement gathering wherein all the required information is
gathered from the customer and is documented. Software requirement specification document is
created for the next phase.
(ii) Risk Analysis:
In this phase, the best solution is selected for the risks involved and analysis is done by building
the prototype.
For Example, the risk involved in accessing the data from a remote database can be that the data
access rate might be too slow. The risk can be resolved by building a prototype of the data access
subsystem.
(iii) Engineering:
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Once the risk analysis is done, coding and testing are done.
(iv) Evaluation:
Customer evaluates the developed system and plans for the next iteration.
Advantages of Spiral Model:
 Risk Analysis is done extensively using the prototype models.
 Any enhancement or change in the functionality can be done in the next iteration.
Disadvantages of Spiral Model:

 The spiral model is best suited for large projects only.

 The cost can be high as it might take a large number of iterations which can lead to high time
to reach the final product.

Iterative Incremental Model

The iterative incremental model divides the product into small chunks.
For Example, Feature to be developed in the iteration is decided and implemented. Each iteration
goes through the phases namely Requirement Analysis, Designing, Coding, and Testing. Detailed
planning is not required in iterations.
Once the iteration is completed, a product is verified and is delivered to the customer for their
evaluation and feedback. Customer‘s feedback is implemented in the next iteration along with the
newly added feature.
Hence, the product increments in terms of features and once the iterations are completed the final
build holds all the features of the product.
Phases of Iterative & Incremental Development Model:
 Inception phase
 Elaboration Phase
 Construction Phase
 Transition Phase
(i) Inception Phase:
Inception phase includes the requirement and scope of the Project.
(ii) Elaboration Phase:
In the elaboration phase, the working architecture of a product is delivered which covers the risk
identified in the inception phase and also fulfills the non-functional requirements.
(iii) Construction Phase:
In the Construction phase, the architecture is filled in with the code which is ready to be deployed
and is created through analysis, designing, implementation, and testing of the functional
requirement.
(iv) Transition Phase:
In the Transition Phase, the product is deployed in the Production environment.
Advantages of Iterative & Incremental Model:
 Any change in the requirement can be easily done and would not cost as there is a scope of
incorporating the new requirement in the next iteration.
 Risk is analyzed & identified in the iterations.
 Defects are detected at an early stage.
 As the product is divided into smaller chunks it is easy to manage the product.
Disadvantages of Iterative & Incremental Model:
 Complete requirement and understanding of a product are required to break down and build
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incrementally.

Agile Model
Agile Model is a combination of the Iterative and incremental model. This model focuses more on
flexibility while developing a product rather than on the requirement.
In Agile, a product is broken into small incremental builds. It is not developed as a complete
product in one go. Each build increments in terms of features. The next build is built on previous
functionality.
In agile iterations are termed as sprints. Each sprint lasts for2-4 weeks. At the end of each sprint,
the product owner verifies the product and after his approval, it is delivered to the customer.
Customer feedback is taken for improvement and his suggestions and enhancement are worked
on in the next sprint. Testing is done in each sprint to minimize the risk of any failures.

Advantages of Agile Model:

 It allows more flexibility to adapt to the changes.
 The new feature can be added easily.
 Customer satisfaction as the feedback and suggestions are taken at every stage.
Disadvantages:
 Lack of documentation.
 Agile needs experienced and highly skilled resources.
 If a customer is not clear about how exactly they want the product to be, then the project
would fail.
Conclusion
Adherence to a suitable life cycle is very important, for the successful completion of the Project.
This, in turn, makes the management easier.
Different Software Development Life Cycle models have their own Pros and Cons. The best model
for any Project can be determined by the factors like Requirement (whether it is clear or unclear),
System Complexity, Size of the Project, Cost, Skill limitation, etc.
Example, in case of an unclear requirement, Spiral and Agile models are best to be used as the
required change can be accommodated easily at any stage.
Waterfall model is a basic model and all the other SDLC models are based on that only.
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3.3 Scrum Framework
Scrum is a framework that is used to implement agile development.
Scrum is a software product development strategy that organizes software developers as a team
to reach a common goal — creating a ready-for-market product. It is a widely used subset of agile
software development.

The word scrum also is used in rugby to define a play where players struggle against each to gain
possession of the ball. The goal of a scrum in software development is to perform at a high-
performing level like a rugby team does in a scrum.
How Scrum Works
In a rugby scrum, all the players literally put their heads together. When it comes to software
development, a scrum can be characterized by developers putting their heads together to address
complex problems.
 Scrum software development starts with a wish list of features — a.k.a. a product backlog.
The team meets to discuss:
o The backlog.
o What still needs to be completed.
o How long it will take.
 Scrum relies on an agile software development concept called sprints:
o Sprints are periods of time when software development is actually done.
o A sprint usually lasts from one week to one month to complete an item from the
backlog.
o The goal of each sprint is to create a saleable product.
o Each sprint ends with a sprint review.
o Then the team chooses another piece of backlog to develop — which starts a new
sprint.
o Sprints continue until the project deadline or the project budget is spent.
 In daily scrums, teams meet to discuss their progress since the previous meeting and make
plans for that day.
o The meetings should be brief — no longer than 15 minutes.
o Each team member needs to be present and prepared.
o The Scrum Master keeps the team focused on the goal.
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Who is in the Scrum?

In rugby, the forwards are involved in the scrum. In software development, three roles are defined
in the scrum framework:
The scrum team does the work. It is the individuals who are working together in the sprints to
produce the products.
The scrum master is part of the scrum team makes sure the team works in compliance with the
scrum rules. This is not a manager.
The product owner represents the customer. This role prioritizes the backlog and coordinates the
scrum teamwork. The product owner is a role similar to project manager in more traditional project
management frameworks.
Benefits of Scrum
Rugby players try to gain control of the ball in the scrum and move it downfield. Software
developers use scrum to move their projects quickly. And the benefits trickle down to software
developers:
 Developers who want the freedom to make decisions thrive in scrum teams. Team morale
tends to be high.
 Each sprint produces a product that is ready for market even though the project is ongoing.
The highest priority requirements are addressed first so a high-quality, low-risk product can
be on the market.
 The incremental process shortens the time to market by about 30 percent to 40 percent.
Because the product owner is part of the scrum team, requirements can be delivered as
they are needed.
 Scrum projects often realize a higher return on investment (ROI). This is attributed to:
o Decreased time to market.
o Early and regular feedback that prompts course corrections early when they are less
costly.
o Defects that are fewer and less costly.
o Projects failing early and quickly when it‘s less costly.
 Reviewing each sprint before the team moves on to the next sprint spreads testing
throughout development.
 Project focus and goals can change with evolving business goals.
Disadvantages of Scrum
While a rugby scrum may get rough and bloody, software developers shouldn‘t have to worry
about that. Nonetheless, scrum is not for all developer teams or software development projects.
There are disadvantages to implementing scrum projects:
 There is a danger of scope creep if stakeholders keep adding functionality to the backlog.
This could be encouraged by the fixed deadline.
 Scrum works best with small teams of experienced software developers. They need to be
able to work quickly.
 Scrum teams do not work well when the scrum master micromanages their work.
 Losing any team members can hurt the progress of the project.
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4 Agile Vs. Scrum

Agile Scrum

Agile is a development methodology Scrum is one of the implementations of

based on iterative and incremental agile methodology. In which incremental
approach. builds are delivered to the customer in
every two to three weeks' time.

Agile software development has been Scrum is ideally used in the project where
widely seen as highly suited to the requirement is rapidly changing.
environments which have small but
expert project development team

In the Agile process, the leadership plays Scrum fosters a self-organizing, cross-
a vital role. functional team.

Compared to Scrum it is a The biggest advantage of Scrum is

more rigid method. So there is not much its flexibility as it quickly reacts to
room for frequent changes. changes.

Agile involves collaborations and face- In Scrum, collaboration is achieved

to-face interactions between the members in daily stand up meeting with a fixed
of various cross-functional teams. role assigned to scrum master, product
owner, and team members.

Agile can require lots of up-front Not too many changes needed while
development process and organizational implementing scrum process.
change.

The agile method needs frequent In the scrum, after each sprint, a build is
delivery to the end user for their delivered to the client for their feedback.
feedback.

In this method, each step of development A demonstration of the functionality is

like requirements, analysis, design, provided at the end of every sprint. So
are continually monitored during the that regular feedback can be taken
lifecycle. before next sprint.

Project head takes cares of all the tasks There is no team leader, so
in the agile method. the entire team addresses the issues or
problems.

The Agile method encourages Daily sprint meeting is conducted to

feedback during the process from the end review and feedback to decide future
user. In this way, the end product will be progress of the project.
more useful.
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Deliver and update the software on a When the team is done with the current
regular basis. sprint activities, the next sprint can be
planned.

Design and execution should be Design and execution can be innovative

kept simple. and experimental.

In the Agile method, the priority is always Empirical Process Control is a core
to satisfy the customer by philosophy of Scrum based process.
providing continuous delivery of
valuable software.

Working software is the most elementary Working software is not an elementary

measure of progress. measure.

It is best to have face-to-face Scrum team focus to deliver maximum

communication, and techniques like business value, from beginning early in
these should be used to get as close to this the project and continuing throughout.
goal as possible.

Following are Agile principles: Following are scrum principles:

-Welcome changing requirements, even -Self-organization: This results in
late in development. Agile processes healthier shared ownership among the
allow change according to customer's team members. It is also an innovative
competitive advantage. and creative environment which is
-Business people and developers conducive to growth.
will work daily throughout the project. -Collaboration: Collaboration is another
-Attention to technical excellence and essential principle which focuses
right design enhances agility collaborative work. 1. Awareness 2.
Articulation and 3. Appropriation. It also
-Agile team, work on to become more considers project management as a shared
effective, for that they adjust its value-creation process with teams
behavior according to the project. working together to offer the highest
value.
-Time-boxing: This principle defines
how time is a limiting constraint in Scrum
method. An important element of time-
boxed elements are Daily Sprint planning
and Review Meetings.
-Iterative Development: This principle
emphasizes how to manage changes better
and build products which satisfy customer
needs. It also defines the organization's
responsibilities regarding iterative
development.
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Read attached Scrum Guide for further details

5 DATA FLOW DIAGRAM

A data-flow diagram (DFD) is a way of representing a flow of a data of a process or a system (usually an
information system). The DFD also provides information about the outputs and inputs of each entity and the
process itself. A data-flow diagram has no control flow, there are no decision rules and no loops.

6 CONTEXT DIAGRAM
A context diagram, sometimes called a level 0 data-flow diagram, is drawn in order to define and clarify the boundaries
of the software system. It identifies the flows of information between the system and external entities. The entire software
system is shown as a single process.

7 ACTIVITY DIAGRAM
An activity diagram is a behavioral diagram i.e. it depicts the behavior of a system. An activity
diagram portrays the control flow from a start point to a finish point showing the various decision paths that
exist while the activity is being executed.

8 Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC)

8.1 What is STLC?
Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) is defined as a sequence of activities conducted to perform
Software Testing.
Contrary to popular belief, Software Testing is not a just a single activity. It consists of a series of
activities carried out methodologically to help certify your software product.

8.2 Phases of STLC

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Below are the phases of STLC:

 Requirement Analysis
 Test Planning
 Test case development
 Test Environment setup
 Test Execution
 Test Cycle closure

1. Requirement Analysis
During this phase, test team studies the requirements from a testing point of view to identify the
testable requirements.
The QA team may interact with various stakeholders (Client, Business Analyst, Technical Leads,
and System Architects etc.) to understand the requirements in detail.
Requirements could be either Functional (defining what the software must do) or Non Functional
(defining system performance /security / availability)
Activities
 Identify types of tests to be performed.
 Gather details about testing priorities and focus.
 Prepare Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM).
 Identify test environment details where testing is supposed to be carried out.
 Automation feasibility analysis (if required).
Deliverables
 RTM
 Automation feasibility report. (if applicable)

2. Test Planning
Typically, in this stage, a Senior QA manager will determine effort and cost estimates for the
project and would prepare and finalize the Test Plan. In this phase, Test Strategy is also
determined.
Activities
 Preparation of test plan/strategy document for various types of testing
 Test tool selection
 Test effort estimation
 Resource planning and determining roles and responsibilities.
 Training requirement
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Deliverables
 Test plan /strategy document.
 Effort estimation document.
3. Test Case Development
This phase involves the creation, verification and rework of test cases & test scripts. Test data, is
identified/created and is reviewed and then reworked as well.
Activities
 Create test cases, automation scripts (if applicable)
 Review and baseline test cases and scripts
 Create test data (If Test Environment is available)
Deliverables
 Test cases/scripts
 Test data

4. Test Environment Setup

Test environment decides the software and hardware conditions under which a work product is
tested. Test environment set-up is one of the critical aspects of testing process and can be done in
parallel with Test Case Development Stage. Test team may not be involved in this activity if the
customer/development team provides the test environment in which case the test team is required
to do a readiness check (smoke testing) of the given environment.
Activities
 Understand the required architecture, environment set-up and prepare hardware and
software requirement list for the Test Environment.
 Setup test Environment and test data
 Perform smoke test on the build
Deliverables
 Environment ready with test data set up
 Smoke Test Results.

5. Test Execution
During this phase, the testers will carry out the testing based on the test plans and the test cases
prepared. Bugs will be reported back to the development team for correction and retesting will be
performed.
Activities
 Execute tests as per plan
 Document test results, and log defects for failed cases
 Map defects to test cases in RTM
 Retest the Defect fixes
 Track the defects to closure
Deliverables
 Completed RTM with the execution status
 Test cases updated with results
 Defect reports
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6. Test Cycle Closure
Testing team will meet, discuss and analyze testing artifacts to identify strategies that have to be
implemented in the future, taking lessons from the current test cycle. The idea is to remove the
process bottlenecks for future test cycles and share best practices for any similar projects in the
future.
Activities
 Evaluate cycle completion criteria based on Time, Test coverage, Cost, Software, Critical
Business Objectives, Quality
 Prepare test metrics based on the above parameters.
 Document the learning out of the project
 Prepare Test closure report
 Qualitative and quantitative reporting of quality of the work product to the customer.
 Test result analysis to find out the defect distribution by type and severity.
Deliverables
 Test Closure report
 Test metrics

8.3 Difference between Test Plan and Test Strategy

Test strategy is a high level document which defines the approach for software testing. It is
basically derived from the Business Requirement document. Test strategy is developed by project
manager or business analyst. It is kind of static document which sets the standards for testing so
not updated often.
Test plan is derived from SRS (Software Requirement Specification) which is prepared by test
lead or manager. The main goal of test plan is to include all the details related to testing such as
what to test, when to test, how to test and who will be the tester. Test plan is often not updated but
if there is some new feature or change is introduced then it has to be updated accordingly.
Now, let‘s make a list of points which are included in both respectively.
Test strategy contains:
Scope and objective: The objective of the business and how much testing scope is there is
defined under test strategy.
Business Issues: How much is the budget of the project, how much time is required for testing,
how much resources are needed etc. are the part of business issues which needs to be
considered before the actual testing starts.
Testing approach: What type of testing is needed (performance, load, stress, functional etc.) and
whether the testing is only manual or automation or both are some of the crucial points which
defines the testing approach.
Test deliverables: What are the documents required from the testing team, how they would keep
the record of the testing cycles etc. will be included here.
Defect tracking approach: Which tool will be used for tracking the defects and how will the
testing team communicate with the development team and how the flow would go for defects are
decided at this point in test strategy.
Training: If there is some complex or new tool is introduced in the business then it is helpful if the
team members are given proper training. What type of training and the responsible person to
conduct such training is defined here.
Automation: If the project or business needs automation testing then the script language, tool
used, reporting and code maintained is planned in test strategy.
Risks: Nobody can anticipate all the risks beforehand but obvious risks can be avoided and also
solution (if risk occur) can be included in the document for future help.
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Test plan contains:
Test plan ID: This is a unique ID which defines the test plan. It can be a number or name or mix
of both, as per the convenience.
Test environment: This section defines what kind of environment is needed for the testing to
carry out. For e.g. in device testing, usually a virtual set up is made to test emergency calling.
Features to be tested/Not tested: This will have all the details about the features which tester
needs to test and what are the feature which are not tested (may be because it is not yet
implemented or not tested for that particular release).
Entry/Exit criteria: These are the terms which define when to start or stop the testing. Standards
will be defined under test strategy and followed by testers in test plan.
Status: Whether a test case is passed or failed or not tested, all these test results are included in
test plan with a proper reason.
Types of testing: The types of testing required such as regression, functional, non-functional,
stress etc. are defined and then executed by the respective tester.
Brief Intro: Brief introduction is also included sometimes so that if any new member joins the
team, he should get an idea how things work.
Basically, test plan is test strategy and test logistics (tools used, environment set up etc.). Strategy
defines what approach should be there for testing and plan has all the details how those approach
will be executed in a proper planned way. They both go hand in hand. Test plan will have all the
names of the testers who tested a particular script and also it maintains cycle numbers so that if
some feature fails in this cycle, previous cycle can be referred to see if that particular feature was
passed or failed, in this way it is easy to get the root of the issue and hence becomes easy to
resolve it.
As mentioned above. Test strategy should not be modified very often because it sets some
standards for test plan and if standards are modified frequently then it becomes difficult to stick to
a particular plan and changing plan frequently will affect the quality of the testing. Sometimes
when small requirements are changed, we only need to update the test plan but test strategy
remains the same.

8.4 Reviews
Reviews are the form of static testing. In software reviews people analyze the work product of
projects such as requirements document, design document, test strategy, test plan in order to find
out any defects in the documents.
Software Reviews, if done properly are the biggest and most cost effective contributor to product
quality.
Review provides a powerful way to improve the quality and productivity of software development
to recognize and fix their own defects early in the software development process.
Advantages of Reviews:-
1. Types of defects that can be found during static testing are: deviations from standards, missing
requirements, design defects, non-maintainable code and inconsistent interface specifications.
2. Since static testing can start early in the life cycle, early feedback on quality issues can be
established, e.g. an early validation of user requirements and not just late in the life cycle during
acceptance testing.
3. By detecting defects at an early stage, rework costs are relatively low and thus a relatively
cheap improvement of the quality of software products can be achieved.
4. The feedback and suggestions document from the static testing process allows for process
improvement, which supports the avoidance of similar errors being made in the future.
Roles and Responsibilities in a Review
There are various roles and responsibilities defined for a review process. Within a review team,
four types of participants can be distinguished: moderator, author, recorder, reviewer and
manager. Let‘s discuss their roles one by one:-
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1. The moderator: - The moderator (or review leader) leads the review process. His role is to
determine the type of review, approach and the composition of the review team. The moderator
also schedules the meeting, disseminates documents before the meeting, coaches other team
members, paces the meeting, leads possible discussions and stores the data that is collected.
2. The author: - As the writer of the ‗document under review‘, the author‘s basic goal should be to
learn as much as possible with regard to improving the quality of the document. The author‘s
task is to illuminate unclear areas and to understand the defects found.
3. The recorder: – The scribe (or recorder) has to record each defect found and any suggestions
or feedback given in the meeting for process improvement.
4. The reviewer: - The role of the reviewers is to check defects and further improvements in
accordance to the business specifications, standards and domain knowledge.
5. The manager :- Manager is involved in the reviews as he or she decides on the execution of
reviews, allocates time in project schedules and determines whether review process objectives
have been met or not.
Phases of a formal Review (Phases of Inspection)
A formal review takes place in a piecemeal approach which consists of 6 main steps. Let‘s discuss
about these phases one by one.
1. Planning
The review process for a particular review begins with a ‗request for review‘ by the author to the
moderator (or inspection leader). A moderator is often assigned to take care of the
scheduling (dates, time, place and invitation) of the review. The project planning needs to allow
time for review and rework activities, thus providing engineers with time to thoroughly participate
in reviews. There is an entry check performed on the documents and it is decided that which
documents are to be considered or not. The document size, pages to be checked, composition
of review team, roles of each participant, strategic approach are decided into planning phase.
2. Kick-Off
The goal of this meeting is to get everybody on the same page regarding the document under
review. Also the result of the entry and exit criteria is discussed. Basically, during the kick-off
meeting, the reviewers receive a short introduction on the objectives of the review and the
documents. Role assignments, checking rate, the pages to be checked, process changes and
possible other questions are also discussed during this meeting. Also, the distribution of the
document under review, source documents and other related documentation, can also be done
during the kick-off.

3. Preparation
In this phase, participants work individually on the document under review using the related
documents, procedures, rules and checklists provided. The individual participants identify
defects, questions and comments, according to their understanding of the document and role.
Spelling mistakes are recorded on the document under review but not mentioned during the
meeting. The annotated document will be given to the author at the end of the logging meeting.
Using checklists during this phase can make reviews more effective and efficient.
4. Review Meeting
This meeting typically consists of the following elements:-
-logging phase
-discussion phase
-decision phase.
During the logging phase the issues, e.g. defects, that have been identified during the preparation
are mentioned page by page, reviewer by reviewer and are logged either by the author or by a
scribe. This phase is for just jot down all the issues not to discuss them in detail. If an issue needs
discussion, the item is logged and then handled in the discussion phase. A detailed discussion on
whether or not an issue is a defect is not very meaningful, as it is much more efficient to simply log
it and proceed to the next one.
The issues classified as discussion items will be handled during discussion phase. Participants
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can take part in the discussion by bringing forward their comments and reasoning. The moderator
also paces this part of the meeting and ensures that all discussed items either have an outcome
by the end of the meeting, or are defined as an action point if a discussion cannot be solved
during the meeting. The outcome of discussions is documented for future reference.
At the end of the meeting, a decision on the document under review has to be made by the
participants, sometimes based on formal exit criteria. The most important exit criterion is the
average number of critical and major defects found per page. If the number of defects found per
page exceeds a certain level, the document must be reviewed again, after it has been reworked. If
the document complies with the exit criteria, the document will be checked during follow-up by the
moderator or one or more participants. Subsequently, the document can leave or exit the review
process.
5. Rework
Based on the defects detected and improvements suggested in the review meeting, the author
improves the document under review. In this phase the author would be doing all the rework to
ensure that defects detected should fixed and corrections should be properly implied. Changes
that are made to the document should be easy to identify during follow-up, therefore the author
has to indicate where changes are made.
6. Follow-Up
After the rework, the moderator should ensure that satisfactory actions have been taken on all
logged defects, improvement suggestions and change requests. If it is decided that all
participants will check the updated document, the moderator takes care of the distribution and
collects the feedback. In order to control and optimize the review process, a number of
measurements are collected by the moderator at each step of the process. Examples of such
measurements include number of defects found, number of defects found per page, time spent
checking per page, total review effort, etc. It is the responsibility of the moderator to ensure that
the information is correct and stored for future analysis.

8.4.1 Types of Review

1. Walkthrough (Informal Review)
A walkthrough is conducted by the author of the ‗document under review‘ who takes the
participants through the document and his or her thought processes, to achieve a common
understanding and to gather feedback. This is especially useful if people from outside the software
discipline are present, who are not used to, or cannot easily understand software
development documents. The content of the document is explained step by step by the author, to
reach consensus on changes or to gather information. The participants are selected from different
departments and backgrounds if the audience represents a broad section of skills and disciplines,
it can give assurance that no major defects are ‗missed‘ in the walk-through. A walkthrough is
especially useful for higher-level documents, such as requirement specifications and architectural
documents.
The specific goals of a walkthrough are:-
 To present the document to stakeholders both within and outside the software discipline, in
order to gather information regarding the topic under documentation.
 To explain and evaluate the contents of the document.
 To establish a common understanding of the document.
 To examine and discuss the validity of proposed solutions and the possible alternatives.
2. Technical review
A technical review is a discussion meeting that focuses on technical content of a document. It is
led by a trained moderator, but also can be led by a technical expert. Compared to inspections,
technical reviews are less formal and there is little or no focus on defect identification on the basis
of referenced documents. The experts that are needed to be present for a technical review
can be architects, chief designers and key users. It is often performed as a peer review without
management participation.
The specific goals of a technical review are:
 Evaluate the value of technical concepts and alternatives in the product and project
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environment.
 Establish consistency in the use and representation of technical concepts.
 Ensuring at an early stage, that technical concepts are used correctly.
 Inform participants of the technical content of the document.
3. Inspection (Formal Review)
Inspection is the most formal review type. It is usually led by a trained moderator (certainly not by
the author).The document under inspection is prepared and checked thoroughly by the
reviewers before the meeting, comparing the work product with its sources and other referenced
documents, and using rules and checklists. In the inspection meeting the defects found are
logged. Depending on the organization and the objectives of a project, inspections can be
balanced to serve a number of goals.
The specific goals of an Inspection are:
 Help the author to improve the quality of the document under inspection.
 Remove defects efficiently, as early as possible.
 Improve product quality, by producing documents with a higher level of quality.
 Create a common understanding by exchanging information among the inspection
participants.

9 Introduction to Automation Testing

Manual Testing is performed by a human sitting in front of a computer carefully executing the test
steps.
Automation Testing means using an automation tool to execute your test case suite.
The automation software can also enter test data into the System under Test, compare expected
and actual results and generate detailed test reports. Test Automation demands considerable
investments of money and resources.
Successive development cycles will require execution of same test suite repeatedly. Using a test
automation tool, it's possible to record this test suite and re-play it as required. Once the test suite
is automated, no human intervention is required. This improved ROI of Test Automation. The goal
of Automation is to reduce the number of test cases to be run manually and not to eliminate
Manual testing altogether.
Benefits of automated testing
Following are benefits of automated testing:
 Increase productivity
 Saves money
 Increases software quality

9.1 Automation Testing

 Reduces testing time
 Support various applications
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 Increase testing coverage
 Reduction of repetitive work
 Greater consistency
 Reliable in results
 Improves accuracy
 Test Frequently and thoroughly
 Early time to market

Why Automation Testing is important?

Suppose any software has come up with new releases and bug fixes, then how will you ensure
about that the new released software with bug fixes has not introduced any new bug in previous
working functionality? So it‘s better to test the software with old functionalities too. It is difficult to
test manually all functionalities of the software every time with the addition of some bug fixes or
new functionalities. So, it is better to test software every time by Automation testing technique
using Automation Tool efficiently and effectively. It is effective in terms of cost, resources, Time
etc.
Do automation testing at the time of lots of regression work – A web application where thousands
of users access the application simultaneously. It is always difficult to think that how will you test
such application and how to create those many users manually and simultaneously. So, it is
better to go for Automation testing.
Automate your testing work when GUI is same but you have lot of often functional changes . That
means test that application where codes changes / function changes frequently in particular GUI.
More functional changes increase the testing work.
When to automate an application:
Do the Automation testing in the following scenario of the Software,
 Requirements do not change frequently
 Access the application for load and performance with many virtual users
 Steady Software with respect to manual testing
 Obtainability of time
 Huge and serious projects
 Projects that need to test the same areas often

Simple Steps to follow in Automation testing:

There are lots of helpful tools to write automation scripts, before using those tools it‘s better to
identify the process which can be used to automate the testing,
 Identify areas within software to automate
 Choose the appropriate tool for test automation
 Write test scripts
 Develop test suits
 Execute test scripts
 Build result reports
 Find possible bugs or performance issue

Different Software testing tools Available in Automation Testing:

These are some tools which can be helpful in Automation testing,
 HP Quick Test Professional
 Selenium
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 Visual Studio Test Professional
 WATIR
 IBM Rational Functional Tester
 TestComplete
 Testing Anywhere
 WinRunner
 LaodRunner
 SilkTest

9.2 Introduction to Selenium

9.2.1 What is Selenium
Selenium is one of the most widely used open source Web UI (User Interface) automation testing
suite. It was originally developed by Jason Huggins in 2004 as an internal tool at Thought Works.
Selenium supports automation across different browsers, platforms and programming languages.
Selenium can be easily deployed on platforms such as Windows, Linux, Solaris and Macintosh.
Moreover, it supports OS (Operating System) for mobile applications like IOS, windows mobile
and android.
Selenium supports a variety of programming languages through the use of drivers specific to each
language. Languages supported by Selenium include C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.
Currently, Selenium Web driver is most popular with Java and C#. Selenium test scripts can be
coded in any of the supported programming languages and can be run directly in most modern
web browsers. Browsers supported by Selenium include Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google
Chrome and Safari.

Selenium can be used to automate functional tests and can be integrated with automation test
tools such as Maven, Jenkins, & Docker to achieve continuous testing. It can also be integrated
with tools such as TestNG, & JUnit for managing test cases and generating reports.
Advantages of Selenium
 Selenium is pure open source, freeware and portable tool.
 Selenium supports variety of languages that include Java, Perl, Python, C#, Ruby, Groovy, Java Script, and
VB Script. etc.
 Selenium supports many operating systems like Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Unix etc.
 Selenium supports many browsers like Internet explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari etc.
 Selenium can be integrated with TestNG testing framework for testing our applications and generating
reports.
 Selenium supports very less CPU and RAM consumption for script execution.

Disadvantages of Selenium
 Selenium needs good technical expertise. The resource should have good programming skills.
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 Selenium only supports web based application and does not support windows based application.
 It is difficult to test Image based application.
 Selenium need outside support for report generation activity like TestNG or Jenkins.
 Selenium does not provide any built in IDE for script generation and it need other IDE like Eclipse for
writing scripts.
 Selenium script creation time is bit high.

9.2.2 Selenium Components

Selenium is not just a single tool but a suite of software, each catering to different testing needs of
an organization. It has four components.
 Selenium Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
 Selenium Remote Control (RC)
 WebDriver
 Selenium Grid

Selenium IDE
Selenium IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is an open source web automation testing
tool under the Selenium Suite. It is a Firefox plugin that you can install as easily as you can with
other plugins. Unlike Selenium WebDriver and RC, it does not require any programming logic to
write its test scripts rather you can simply record your interactions with the browser to create test
cases. Subsequently, you can use the playback option to re-run the test cases.
Selenium WebDriver
Selenium WebDriver is the most important component of Selenium Tool's Suite. In WebDriver, test
scripts can be developed using any of the supported programming languages and can be run
directly in most modern web browsers. Languages supported by WebDriver include C#, Java,
Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.
Before learning the concepts of Selenium WebDriver, you should be well versed with any of the
supported programming languages. Currently, Selenium Web driver is most popular with Java and
C#.
Selenium WebDriver is the most commonly used automation tool within Selenium tool suite, which
automates the web application by speaking directly to the browser using the ‗native‘ method for
the browser and operating system.
Since Selenium WebDriver is the most popular and most used tool in the Selenium suite, it is
referred simply as Selenium. So whenever someone mentions Selenium, it‘s most likely that they
are talking about Selenium WebDriver.
Selenium Grid
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Selenium Grid is a tool that allows you to run your test cases in parallel, that is, you can run
different tests at the same time on different remote machines. This parallel execution would be
especially helpful when you have a large number of test scripts to be executed.
Selenium RC
Selenium RC or Selenium Remote Control uses JavaScript based library to interact with web
pages. While Selenium RC was a tremendous tool, it had its own drawbacks. Selenium RC is no
longer in use now and is not actively supported by the Selenium Developers.

Selenium resources can be found at https://www.seleniumhq.org/

10 Basic Database Concepts

10.1 Relational Database Basics
SQL
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. It is the language used by relational database
management systems (RDBMS) to access and manipulate data and to create structure and
destroy databases and database objects.

Relational Databases
A relational database at its simplest is a set of tables used for storing data. Each table has a
unique name and may relate to one or more other tables in the database through common values.
Tables
A table in a database is a collection of rows and columns. Tables are also known as entities or
relations.
Rows
A row contains data pertaining to a single item or record in a table. Rows are also known as
records or tuples.
Columns
A column contains data representing a specific characteristic of the records in the table. Columns
are also known as fields or attributes.

Relationships
A relationship is a link between two tables (i.e. relations). Relationships make it possible to find
data in one table that pertains to a specific record in another table.
Datatypes
Each of a table's columns has a defined datatype that specifies the type of data that can exist in
that column. For example, the FirstName column might be defined as varchar (20), indicating that
it can contain a string of up to 20 characters. Unfortunately, datatypes vary widely between
databases.
Candidate Key
A Candidate key is an attribute or set of attributes that uniquely identifies a record. Among the set
of candidate, one candidate key is chosen as Primary Key. So a table can have multiple candidate
key but each table can have maximum one primary key.
Primary Keys
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Most tables have a column or group of columns that can be used to identify records. For example,
an Employees table might have a column called EmployeeID that is unique for every row. This
makes it easy to keep track of a record over time and to associate a record with records in other
tables.
Foreign Keys
Foreign key columns are columns that link to primary key columns in other tables, thereby
creating a relationship. For example, the Customers table might have a foreign key column
called SalesRep that links to EmployeeID, the primary key in the Employees table.
Alternate Key
Alternate keys are candidate keys that are not selected as primary key. Alternate key can also
work as a primary key. Alternate key is also called ―Secondary Key‖.
Unique Key
A unique key is a set of one or more attribute that can be used to uniquely identify the records in
table. Unique key is similar to primary key but unique key field can contain a ―Null‖ value but
primary ke y doesn‘t allow ―Null‖ value. Other difference is that primary key field contain a
clustered index and unique field contain a non-clustered index.
Composite Key
Composite key is a combination of more than one attributes that can be used to uniquely identity
each record. It is also known as ―Compound‖ key. A composite key may be a candidate or primary
key.
Super Key
Super key is a set of on e or more than one keys that can be used to uniquely identify the record
in table. A Super key for an entity is a set of one or more attributes whose combined value
uniquely identifies the entity in the entity set. A super key is a combine form of Primary Key,
Alternate key and Unique key and Primary Key, Unique Key and Alternate Key are subset of super
key.
Surrogate Key
Surrogate key is an artificial key that is used to uniquely identify the record in table. For example,
in SQL Server or Sybase database system contain an artificial key that is known as ―Identity‖.
Surrogate keys are just simple sequential number. Surrogate keys are only used to act as a
primary key.
Difference between primary key and unique constraints?
Primary key cannot have NULL value; the unique constraints can have NULL values. There is only one
primary key in a table, but there can be multiple unique constrains.
Database Normalization
It is a process of analyzing the given relation schemas based on their functional dependencies
and primary keys to achieve the following desirable properties:
1) Minimizing Redundancy
2) Minimizing the Insertion, Deletion, And Update Anomalies
Relation schemas that do not meet the properties are decomposed into smaller relation schemas
that could meet desirable properties.

An update anomaly. Employee 519 is shown as having different addresses on different records.
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An insertion anomaly. Until the new faculty member, Dr. Newsome, is assigned to teach at least one course, his or her
details cannot be recorded.

A deletion anomaly. All information about Dr. Giddens is lost if he or she temporarily ceases to be assigned to any
courses.
When an attempt is made to modify (update, insert into, or delete from) a relation, the following undesirable
side-effects may arise in relations that have not been sufficiently normalized:
 Update anomaly. The same information can be expressed on multiple rows; therefore updates to the relation may result
in logical inconsistencies. For example, each record in an "Employees' Skills" relation might contain an Employee ID,
Employee Address, and Skill; thus a change of address for a particular employee may need to be applied to multiple
records (one for each skill). If the update is only partially successful – the employee's address is updated on some
records but not others – then the relation is left in an inconsistent state. Specifically, the relation provides conflicting
answers to the question of what this particular employee's address is. This phenomenon is known as an update
anomaly.
 Insertion anomaly. There are circumstances in which certain facts cannot be recorded at all. For example, each record
in a "Faculty and Their Courses" relation might contain a Faculty ID, Faculty Name, Faculty Hire Date, and Course
Code. Therefore, we can record the details of any faculty member who teaches at least one course, but we cannot
record a newly hired faculty member who has not yet been assigned to teach any courses, except by setting the Course
Code to null. This phenomenon is known as an insertion anomaly.
 Deletion anomaly. Under certain circumstances, deletion of data representing certain facts necessitates deletion of data
representing completely different facts. The "Faculty and Their Courses" relation described in the previous example
suffers from this type of anomaly, for if a faculty member temporarily ceases to be assigned to any courses, we must
delete the last of the records on which that faculty member appears, effectively also deleting the faculty member,
unless we set the Course Code to null. This phenomenon is known as a deletion anomaly.
Database Normalization
Normalization is a database design technique which organizes tables in a manner that reduces redundancy and
dependency of data.
1st Normal Form
 Each table cell should contain a single value.
 Each record needs to be unique.

2nd Normal Form

 Be in 1NF
 Single Column Primary Key

3rd Normal Form

 Be in 2NF
 Has no transitive functional dependencies

4th Normal Form

 If no database table instance contains two or more, independent and multivalued data describing the
relevant entity, then it is in 4th Normal Form.
5th Normal Form
 A table is in 5th Normal Form only if it is in 4NF and it cannot be decomposed into any number of smaller
tables without loss of data.
View in SQL
A view is a virtual table based on the result-set of an SQL statement. We can create using create
view syntax.
CREATE VIEW view_name AS
SELECT column_name(s)
FRoM table_name
WHERE condition
1. Views can represent a subset of the data contained in a table; consequently, a view can limit
the degree of exposure of the underlying tables to the outer world: a given user may have
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permission to query the view, while denied access to the rest of the base table.
2. Views can join and simplify multiple tables into a single virtual table
3. Views can act as aggregated tables, where the database engine aggregates data (sum,
average etc.) and presents the calculated results as part of the data

Database Trigger
A Trigger is a code that associated with insert, update or delete operations. The code is executed
automatically whenever the associated query is executed on a table. Triggers can be useful to
maintain integrity in database.
Stored Procedure
A stored procedure is like a function that contains a set of operations compiled together. It
contains a set of operations that are commonly used in an application to do some common
database tasks.
Database Indexes
A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a
database table at the cost of additional writes and the use of more storage space to maintain the
extra copy of data.
Relational Database Management System
A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS), commonly (but incorrectly) called a
database, is software for creating, manipulating, and administering a database. For simplicity, we
will often refer to RDBMSs as databases.
Characteristics of Database Management System
A database management system has following characteristics:
Data stored into Tables: Data is never directly stored into the database. Data is stored into
tables, created inside the database. DBMS also allows to have relationships between tables which
makes the data more meaningful and connected. You can easily understand what type of data is
stored where by looking at all the tables created in a database.
Reduced Redundancy: In the modern world hard drives are very cheap, but earlier when hard
drives were too expensive, unnecessary repetition of data in database was a big problem. But
DBMS follows Normalization which divides the data in such a way that repetition is minimum.
Data Consistency: On Live data, i.e. data that is being continuously updated and added,
maintaining the consistency of data can become a challenge. But DBMS handles it all by itself.
Support Multiple user and Concurrent Access: DBMS allows multiple users to work on it(update,
insert, delete data) at the same time and still manages to maintain the data consistency.
Query Language: DBMS provides users with a simple Query language, using which data can be
easily fetched, inserted, deleted and updated in a database.
Security: The DBMS also takes care of the security of data, protecting the data from un-
authorized access. In a typical DBMS, we can create user accounts with different access
permissions, using which we can easily secure our data by restricting user access.
DBMS supports transactions, which allows us to better handle and manage data integrity in real
world applications where multi-threading is extensively used.

10.2 SQL Statements

Database Manipulation Language (DML)
DML statements are used to work with data in an existing database. The most common DML
statements are:
 SELECT
 INSERT
 UPDATE
 DELETE

Database Definition Language (DDL)

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DDL statements are used to structure objects in a database. The most common DDL statements
are:
 CREATE
 ALTER
 DROP

Database Control Language (DCL)

DCL statements are used for database administration. The most common DCL statements are:
 GRANT
 DENY (SQL Server Only)
 REVOKE

The DELETE Statement is used to delete rows from a table.

To delete an employee with id 100 from the employee table, the sql delete query would be like,
DELETE FROM employee WHERE id = 100;
To delete all the rows from the employee table, the query would be like,
DELETE FROM employee;

The TRUNCATE command is used to delete all the rows from the table and free the space containing the
table.
TRUNCATE TABLE table_name;
The SQL DROP command is used to remove an object from the database. If you drop a table,
all the rows in the table is deleted and the table structure is removed from the database. Once a
table is dropped we cannot get it back, so be careful while using DROP command. When a table
is dropped all the references to the table will not be valid.
DROP TABLE table_name;
If a table is dropped, all the relationships with other tables will no longer be valid, the integrity constraints
will be dropped, grant or access privileges on the table will also be dropped, if you want use the table again
it has to be recreated with the integrity constraints, access privileges and the relationships with other tables
should be established again. But, if a table is truncated, the table structure remains the same, therefore any
of the above problems will not exist.

Writing my first query

Let‟s start by using the surveys table. Here we have data on every individual that was
captured at the site, including when they were captured, what plot they were captured
on, their species ID, sex and weight in grams.
Let‟s write an SQL query that selects only the year column from the surveys table. SQL
queries can be written in the box located under the “Execute SQL” tab. Click „Run SQL‟
to execute the query in the box.
SELECT
year
FROM
surveys;
We have capitalized the words SELECT and FROM because they are SQL keywords.
SQL is case insensitive, but it helps for readability, and is good style.
If we want more information, we can just add a new column to the
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list of fields, right after SELECT: SELECT year, month, day

FROM surveys;
Or we can select all of the columns in a table using the wildcard *
SELECT *
FROM surveys;

Unique values
If we want only the unique values so that we can quickly see what species have
been sampled we use DISTINCT SELECT DISTINCT species_id
FROM surveys;
If we select more than one column, then the distinct pairs of values are returned
SELECT DISTINCT
year, species_id FROM
surveys;

Calculated values
We can also do calculations with the values in a query. For example, if we wanted to
look at the mass of each individual on different dates, but we needed it in kg instead of
g we would use
SELECT year, month,
day, weight /1000.0
FROM surveys;
When we run the query, the expression weight / 1000.0 is evaluated for each row and
appended to that row, in a new column. Expressions can use any fields, any arithmetic
operators (+, -, *, and /) and a variety of built-in functions. For example, we could round
the values to make them easier to read.
SELECT plot_id, species_id, sex, weight,
ROUND (weight / 1000.0, 2) FROM
surveys;

Challenge
Write a query that returns the year, month, day, species_id and weight in mg
SOLUTION
SELECT day, month, year,
species_id, weight * 1000 FROM
surveys;
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Filtering
Databases can also filter data – selecting only the data meeting certain criteria. For example,
let‟s say we only want data for the species Dipodomys merriami, which has a species code of
DM. We need to add a WHERE clause to our query:
SELECT *
FROM surveys
WHERE species_id='DM';
We can do the same thing with numbers. Here, we only want the data since 2000:
SELECT * FROM
surveys WHERE year
>= 2000;
We can use more sophisticated conditions by combining tests with AND and OR. For
example, suppose we want the data on Dipodomys merriami starting in the year 2000:
SELECT *
FROM surveys
WHERE (year >= 2000) AND (species_id = 'DM');
Note that the parentheses are not needed, but again, they help with readability. They
also ensure that the computer combines AND and OR in the way that we intend.
If we wanted to get data for any of the Dipodomys species, which have species codes DM, DO,
and DS, we could combine the tests using OR:
SELECT *
FROM surveys
WHERE (species_id = 'DM') OR (species_id = 'DO') OR (species_id = 'DS');
Challenge
Write a query that returns the day, month, year, species_id, and weight (in kg) for individuals
caught on Plot 1 that weigh more than 75 g
SOLUTION
SELECT day, month, year,
species_id, weight / 1000.0 FROM
surveys
WHERE
plot_id = 1
AND weight >
75;

Building more complex queries

Now, lets combine the above queries to get data for the 3 Dipodomys species from the year 2000 on. This
time, let‟s use IN as one way to make the query easier to understand. It is equivalent to saying WHERE
(species_id = 'DM') OR (species_id = 'DO') OR (species_id = 'DS'), but reads more neatly:
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SELECT *
FROM surveys
WHERE (year >= 2000) AND (species_id IN ('DM', 'DO', 'DS'));
We started with something simple, then added more clauses one by one, testing their effects as we went
along. For complex queries, this is a good strategy, to make sure you are getting what you want.
Sometimes it might help to take a subset of the data that you can easily see in a temporary database to
practice your queries on before working on a larger or more complicated database.
When the queries become more complex, it can be useful to add comments. In SQL, comments are started
by --, and end at the end of the line. For example, a commented version of the above query can be written
as:
-- Get post 2000 data on Dipodomys' species
-- These are in the surveys table, and we are
interested in all columns SELECT * FROM
surveys
-- Sampling year is in the column `year`, and we
want to include 2000 WHERE (year >= 2000)
-- Dipodomys' species have the `species_id`
DM, DO, and DS AND (species_id IN ('DM',
'DO', 'DS'));
Although SQL queries often read like plain English, it is always useful to add comments; this is especially
true of more complex queries.

Sorting
We can also sort the results of our queries by using ORDER BY. For simplicity, let‟s go back to the
species table and alphabetize it by taxa.
First, let‟s look at what‟s in the species table. It‟s a table of the species_id and the full genus, species and
taxa information for each species_id. Having this in a separate table is nice, because we didn‟t need to
include all this information in our main surveys table.
SELECT *
FROM species;
Now let‟s order it by taxa.
SELECT *
FROM species
ORDER BY
taxa ASC;
The keyword ASC tells us to order it in Ascending order. We could alternately use DESC to get descending order.
SELECT *
FROM species
ORDER BY taxa DESC;
ASC is the default.
We can also sort on several fields at once. To truly be alphabetical, we might want to order by genus then species.
SELECT *
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FROM species
ORDER BY genus ASC, species ASC;

Challenge
Write a query that returns year, species_id, and weight in kg from the surveys table, sorted with the largest weights at
the top.
SOLUTION
SELECT year, species_id,
weight / 1000.0 FROM
surveys ORDER BY weight
DESC;

Order of execution
Another note for ordering. We don’t actually have to display a column to sort by it. For example, let‟s
say we want to order the birds by their species ID, but we only want to see genus and species.
SELECT genus,
species FROM
species
WHERE taxa =
'Bird'
ORDER BY species_id ASC;
We can do this because sorting occurs earlier in the computational pipeline
than field selection. The computer is basically doing this:

1. Filtering rows according to WHERE

2. Sorting results according to ORDER BY
3. Displaying requested columns or expressions.
Clauses are written in a fixed order: SELECT, FROM, WHERE, then ORDER BY. It is possible to write
a query as a single line, but for readability, we recommend to put each clause on its own line.

Challenge
Let‟s try to combine what we‟ve learned so far in a single query. Using the surveys table write a query to display the
three date
fields, species_id, and weight in kilograms (rounded to two decimal places), for individuals captured in
1999, ordered alphabetically by the species_id. Write the query as a single line, then put each clause on its
own line, and see how more legible the query becomes!
SOLUTION
SELECT year, month, day, species_id,
ROUND(weight / 1000.0, 2) FROM surveys
WHERE year = 1999
ORDER BY species_id;
GROUP BY:
The GROUP BY clause is a SQL command that is used to group rows that have the same values. The GROUP
BY clause is used in the SELECT statement . Optionally it is used in conjunction with aggregate functions to
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produce summary reports from the database. That's what it does, summarizing data from the database.
Difference between HAVING and WHERE clauses
HAVING: is used to check conditions after the aggregation
takes place. WHERE: is used to check conditions before the
aggregation takes place. This code:

Select City, count(ContactAdd) as AddressCount from Address where State = „MA‟ group by City having
count(ContactAdd)>5
Gives you a table of cities in MA with more than 5 addresses and the number of addresses in each city.

10.3 SQL JOIN

SQL Join is used to fetch data from two or more tables, which is joined to appear as single set of
data. It is used for combining column from two or more tables by using values common to both
tables.
JOIN Keyword is used in SQL queries for joining two or more tables. A table can also join to itself,
which is known as, Self Join.
Types of JOIN
Following are the types of JOIN that we can use in SQL:
 Cross

 Inner

 Outer

 Left

 Right

Cross JOIN or Cartesian product

This type of JOIN returns the Cartesian product of rows from the tables in Join. It will return a table
which consists of records which combines each row from the first table with each row of the
second table.
Cross JOIN Syntax is,
SELECT column-name-list
FROM
table-name1 CROSS JOIN table-name2;

Example of Cross JOIN

Following is the class table,
ID NAME
1 abhi
2 adam
4 alex

and the class info table,

ID Address
1 DELHI
2 MUMBAI
3 CHENNAI
Cross JOIN query will be,
SELECT * FROM
class CROSS JOIN class_info;
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The resultset table will look like,
ID NAME ID Address
1 abhi 1 DELHI
2 adam 1 DELHI
4 alex 1 DELHI
1 abhi 2 MUMBAI

2 adam 2 MUMBAI
4 alex 2 MUMBAI
1 abhi 3 CHENNAI
2 adam 3 CHENNAI
4 alex 3 CHENNAI

As you can see, this join returns the cross product of all the records present in both the tables.
INNER Join or EQUI Join
This is a simple JOIN in which the result is based on matched data as per the equality condition
specified in the SQL query.
Inner Join Syntax is,
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 INNER JOIN table-name2
WHERE table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

Example of INNER JOIN

Consider a class table,
ID NAME
1 abhi
2 adam
3 alex
4 anu

and the class_info table,

ID Address
1 DELHI
2 MUMBAI
3 CHENNAI

Inner JOIN query will be,

SELECT * from class INNER JOIN class_info where class.id = class_info.id;

The result set table will look like,

ID NAME ID Address
1 abhi 1 DELHI
2 adam 2 MUMBAI
3 alex 3 CHENNAI

OUTER JOIN
Outer Join is based on both matched and unmatched data. Outer Joins subdivide further into,

1. Left Outer Join

2. Right Outer Join
3. Full Outer Join
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LEFT Outer Join

The left outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data from the two tables and then the
remaining rows of the left table and null from the right table's columns.
Syntax for Left Outer Join is,
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 LEFT OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

To specify a condition, we use the ON keyword with Outer Join.

Left outer Join Syntax for Oracle is,
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1, table-name2 on table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name(+);

Example of Left Outer Join

Here is the class table,
ID NAME
1 abhi
2 adam
3 alex
4 anu
5 ashish

and the class_info table,

ID Address
1 DELHI
2 MUMBAI
3 CHENNAI
7 NOIDA
8 PANIPAT

Left Outer Join query will be,

SELECT * FROM class LEFT OUTER JOIN class_info ON (class.id = class_info.id);

The resultset table will look like,

ID NAME ID Address
1 abhi 1 DELHI
2 adam 2 MUMBAI
3 alex 3 CHENNAI
4 anu null null
5 ashish null null

RIGHT Outer Join

The right outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data from the two tables being
joined, then the remaining rows of the right table and null for the remaining left table's columns.
Syntax for Right Outer Join is,
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 RIGHT OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

Right outer Join Syntax for Oracle is,

SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1, table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name(+) = table-name2.column-name;
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Example of Right Outer Join
Once again the class table,
ID NAME
1 abhi
2 adam
3 alex
4 anu
5 ashish

and the class_info table,

ID Address
1 DELHI
2 MUMBAI
3 CHENNAI
7 NOIDA
8 PANIPAT

Right Outer Join query will be,

SELECT * FROM class RIGHT OUTER JOIN class_info ON (class.id = class_info.id);

The resultant table will look like,

ID NAME ID Address
1 abhi 1 DELHI
2 adam 2 MUMBAI
3 alex 3 CHENNAI
null null 7 NOIDA
null null 8 PANIPAT

Full Outer Join

The full outer join returns a resultset table with the matched data of two table then remaining rows
of both left table and then the right table.
Syntax of Full Outer Join is,
SELECT column-name-list FROM
table-name1 FULL OUTER JOIN table-name2
ON table-name1.column-name = table-name2.column-name;

Example of Full outer join is,

The class table,
ID NAME
1 abhi
2 adam
3 alex
4 anu
5 ashish

and the class_info table,

ID Address
1 DELHI
2 MUMBAI

3 CHENNAI
7 NOIDA
8 PANIPAT
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Full Outer Join query will be like,

SELECT * FROM class FULL OUTER JOIN class_info ON (class.id = class_info.id);

The resultset table will look like,

ID NAME ID Address
1 Abhi 1 DELHI
2 Adam 2 MUMBAI
3 Alex 3 CHENNAI
4 Anu null null
5 Ashish null null
null Null 7 NOIDA
null Null 8 PANIPAT

11 Basic Programming Concepts

11.1 OOPs concepts in Java
Object-oriented programming System (OOPs) is a programming paradigm based on the concept
of ―objects‖ that contain data and methods. The primary purpose of object-oriented programming
is to increase the flexibility and maintainability of programs. Object oriented programming brings
together data and its behavior (methods) in a single location (object) makes it easier to
understand how a program works.

11.1.1 What is an Object

Object: is a bundle of data and its behavior (often known as methods).

Objects have two characteristics: They have states and behaviors.
Examples of states and behaviors
Example 1:
Object: House
State: Address, Color, Area
Behavior: Open door, close door
So if I had to write a class based on states and behaviors of House. I can do it like this: States can
be represented as instance variables and behaviors as methods of the class. We will see how to
create classes in the next section of this guide.
class House {
String address;
String color;
double area;
void openDoor() {
//Write code here
}
void closeDoor() {
//Write code here
}

}
Example 2:
Let‘s take another example.
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Object: Car
State: Color, Brand, Weight, Model
Behavior: Break, Accelerate, Slow Down, and Gear change.
Note: As we have seen above, the states and behaviors of an object, can be represented by
variables and methods in the class respectively.

Characteristics of Objects:
If you find it hard to understand Abstraction and Encapsulation, do not worry as I have covered
these topics in detail with examples in the next section of this guide.

1. Abstraction
2. Encapsulation
3. Message passing
Abstraction: Abstraction is a process where you show only ―relevant‖ data and ―hide‖ unnecessary
details of an object from the user.

Encapsulation: Encapsulation simply means binding object state(fields) and behaviour(methods)

together. If you are creating class, you are doing encapsulation.

Message passing
A single object by itself may not be very useful. An application contains many objects. One object
interacts with another object by invoking methods on that object. It is also referred to as Method
Invocation. See the diagram below.

11.1.2 What is a Class in OOPs Concepts

A class can be considered as a blueprint using which you can create as many objects as you like.
For example, here we have a class Website that has two data members (also known as fields,
instance variables and object states). This is just a blueprint, it does not represent any website,
however using this we can create Website objects (or instances) that represents the websites. We
have created two objects, while creating objects we provided separate properties to the objects
using constructor.
public class Website {
//fields (or instance variable)
String webName;
int webAge;

// constructor
Website(String name, int age){
this.webName = name;
this.webAge = age;
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}
public static void main(String args[]){
//Creating objects
Website obj1 = new Website("beginners book", 5);
Website obj2 = new Website("google", 18);

//Accessing object data through reference

System.out.println (obj1.webName+" "+obj1.webAge);
System.out.println (obj2.webName+" "+obj2.webAge);
}
}
Output:
beginnersbook 5
google 18

What is a Constructor?
Constructor looks like a method but it is in fact not a method. It‘s name is same as class name and
it does not return any value. You must have seen this statement in almost all the programs I have
shared above:
MyClass obj = new MyClass();
If you look at the right side of this statement, we are calling the default constructor of
class myClass to create a new object (or instance).
We can also have parameters in the constructor, such constructors are known as parameterized
constructors.
Example of constructor

public class ConstructorExample {

int age;
String name;
//Default constructor
ConstructorExample(){

this.name="Chaitanya";

this.age=30;
}

//Parameterized constructor
ConstructorExample(String n,int a){
this.name=n;

this.age=a;
}
public static void main(String args[]){
ConstructorExample obj1 = new ConstructorExample();

ConstructorExample obj2 =

new ConstructorExample("Steve", 56);

System.out.println(obj1.name+" "+obj1.age);

System.out.println(obj2.name+" "+obj2.age);
}
}

Output:
Chaitanya 30
Steve 56

11.1.3 Object Oriented Programming features

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These four features are the main OOPs Concepts that you must learn to understand the Object
Oriented Programming in Java
Abstraction
Abstraction is the concept of hiding the internal details and describing things in simple terms. There
are many ways to achieve abstraction in object oriented programming, such as encapsulation and
inheritance.
Abstraction is a process where you show only ―relevant‖ data and ―hide‖ unnecessary details of an
object from the user. For example, when you login to your bank account online, you enter your
user_id and password and press login, what happens when you press login, how the input data sent
to server, how it gets verified is all abstracted away from the you.
Encapsulation
Encapsulation is the technique used to implement abstraction in object oriented programming.
Encapsulation is used for access restriction to a class members and methods.
Access modifier keywords are used for encapsulation in object oriented programming. For example,
encapsulation in java is achieved using private, protected and public keywords.
private hides from other classes within the package. public exposes to classes outside the package. protected is a
version of public restricted only to subclasses
in Java protected makes the method also accessible from the whole package.
Encapsulation simply means binding object state(fields) and behavior(methods) together. If you are
creating class, you are doing encapsulation.
Encapsulation example in Java
How to
1) Make the instance variables private so that they cannot be accessed directly from outside the
class. You can only set and get values of these variables through the methods of the class.
2) Have getter and setter methods in the class to set and get the values of the fields.
class EmployeeCount
{
private int numOfEmployees = 0;
public void setNoOfEmployees (int count)
{
numOfEmployees = count;
}
public double getNoOfEmployees ()
{
return numOfEmployees;
}
}
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public class EncapsulationExample
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
EmployeeCount obj = new EmployeeCount ();
obj.setNoOfEmployees(5613);
System.out.println("No Of Employees: "+(int)obj.getNoOfEmployees());
}
}

Output:
No Of Employees: 5613
The class EncapsulationExample that is using the Object of class EmployeeCount will not able to get the
NoOfEmployees directly. It has to use the setter and getter methods of the same class to set and get
the value.
So what is the benefit of encapsulation in java programming
Well, at some point of time, if you want to change the implementation details of the class
EmployeeCount, you can freely do so without affecting the classes that are using it.
Inheritance
The process by which one class acquires the properties and functionalities of another class is
called inheritance. Inheritance provides the idea of reusability of code and each sub class
defines only those features that are unique to it, rest of the features can be inherited from the
parent class.
1. Inheritance is a process of defining a new class based on an existing class by extending its
common data members and methods.
2. Inheritance allows us to reuse of code, it improves reusability in your java application.
3. The parent class is called the base class or super class. The child class that extends the base class
is called the derived class or sub class or child class.
Note: The biggest advantage of Inheritance is that the code in base class need not be
rewritten in the child class.
The variables and methods of the base class can be used in the child class as well.
Syntax: Inheritance in Java
To inherit a class we use extends keyword. Here class A is child class and class B is parent
class.
class A extends B
{
}

Inheritance Example
In this example, we have a parent class Teacher and a child class MathTeacher. In
the MathTeacher class we need not to write the same code which is already present in the
present class. Here we have college name, designation and does() method that is common
for all the teachers, thus MathTeacher class does not need to write this code, the common
data members and methods can inherited from the Teacher class.
class Teacher {
String designation = "Teacher";
String college = "Beginnersbook";
void does(){

System.out.println("Teaching");
}
}
public class MathTeacher extends Teacher{
String mainSubject = "Maths";
public static void main(String args[]){
MathTeacher obj = new MathTeacher();
System.out.println(obj.college);
System.out.println(obj.designation);
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System.out.println(obj.mainSubject);
obj.does();
}
}

Output:
Beginnersbook
Teacher
Maths
Teaching
Note: Multi-level inheritance is allowed in Java but not multiple inheritance

Types of Inheritance:
Single Inheritance: refers to a child and parent class relationship where a class extends the
another class.
Multilevel inheritance: refers to a child and parent class relationship where a class extends
the child class. For example class A extends class B and class B extends class C.
Hierarchical inheritance: refers to a child and parent class relationship where more than one
classes extends the same class. For example, class B extends class A and class C extends
class A.
Multiple Inheritance: refers to the concept of one class extending more than one classes,
which means a child class has two parent classes. Java doesn‘t support multiple inheritance,
read more about it here.
Most of the new OO languages like Small Talk, Java, C# do not support Multiple inheritance.
Multiple Inheritance is supported in C++.
Polymorphism
Polymorphism is the concept where an object behaves differently in different situations. In java, we
use method overloading and method overriding to achieve polymorphism.
Polymorphism is a object oriented programming feature that allows us to perform a single
action in different ways. For example, lets say we have a class Animal that has a
method animalSound(), here we cannot give implementation to this method as we do not know
which Animal class would extend Animal class. So, we make this method abstract like this:

public abstract class Animal{

...
public abstract void animalSound();
}
Now suppose we have two Animal classes Dog and Lion that extends Animal class. We can
provide the implementation detail there.

public class Lion extends Animal{

...
@Override
public void animalSound(){
System.out.println("Roar");
}
}
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and

public class Dog extends Animal{

...
@Override
public void animalSound(){
System.out.println("Woof");
}
}
As you can see that although we had the common action for all subclasses animalSound () but
there were different ways to do the same action. This is a perfect example of polymorphism
(feature that allows us to perform a single action in different ways).

Types of Polymorphism
1) Static Polymorphism
2) Dynamic Polymorphism

Static Polymorphism:
Polymorphism that is resolved during compiler time is known as static polymorphism. Method
overloading can be considered as static polymorphism example.
Method Overloading: This allows us to have more than one methods with same name in a
class that differs in signature.
class DisplayOverloading
{
public void disp( char c)
{
System.out.println(c);
}
public void disp(char c, int num)
{
System.out.println(c + " "+num);
}
}
public class ExampleOverloading
{
public static void main(String args[])
{
DisplayOverloading obj = new DisplayOverloading();
obj.disp('a');
obj.disp('a',10);
}
}

Output:
a
a 10

When I say method signature I am not talking about return type of the method, for example if
two methods have same name, same parameters and have different return type, then this is
not a valid method overloading example. This will throw compilation error.
Dynamic Polymorphism
It is also known as Dynamic Method Dispatch. Dynamic polymorphism is a process in which a
call to an overridden method (Method Overriding means method in the child class having
same name and parameter as in parent class but different implementation) is resolved at
runtime rather, thats why it is called runtime polymorphism.
Example

class Animal{
public void animalSound(){
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System.out.println("Default Sound");
}
}
public class Dog extends Animal{

public void animalSound(){

System.out.println("Woof");
}
public static void main(String args[]){
Animal obj = new Dog();

obj.animalSound();
}
}

Output:
Woof

Since both the classes, child class and parent class have the same method animalSound. Which
of the method will be called is determined at runtime by JVM.
Few more overriding examples:
Animal obj = new Animal();
obj.animalSound();
// This would call the Animal class method

Dog obj = new Dog();

obj.animalSound();
// This would call the Dog class method

Animal obj = new Dog();

obj.animalSound();
// This would call the Dog class method

Method Overloading vs Method Overriding

Overloading occurs when two or more methods in one class have the same method name but different
parameters. Overriding means having two methods with the same method name and parameters (i.e., method
signature). One of the methods is in the parent class and the other is in the child class.
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