Software testing is the basic activity in software development. Black box testing and white box testing are two different types of software testing strategies that are equally powerful and even better when used together.

Black box testing

In software, black box testing is convenient and reduces the risk of catastrophic crashes. What might a catastrophic software crash be? The system crashed while updating the customer database? In this case, customer data may be lost.

There are three types of black box testing: functional testing, non-functional testing, and regression testing.

Black box functional testing

With functional black box testing, we can check that the software works as expected without knowing how it performs.

Software is made up of modules or components. It is a series of components made up of many different components that make up a complete system. In this way, in small components, we can test each component to make sure it works, not just a large system.

Therefore, for each widget, there are inputs and expected outputs. To do a black box test, you need to create a list of valid and invalid inputs, including boundary conditions, and so on.

This is a simple functional black box test example. Suppose you have a software module that inputs a number.

Your simplified test input is:

A positive number
A negative number
zero
The number after the decimal point
The numerical value
Empty input

Non-functional black box testing

We can also use black box testing to test other expected system behavior. These may include scenarios such as system response time, expected data, and heavy network traffic.

Non-functional testing will include things like setting up a mock test environment to see how the system performs under pressure. A variety of tools are available to help us achieve these testing goals and automate the processes involved.

Regression black box testing

This is when we make a change in one place and do a black box test of the entire system (both functional and non-functional) to ensure that the change does not accidentally affect other parts of the system. Obviously, this process needs to be automated!

White box testing

White-box testing is when testing the internal structure of a software module: the code itself. White-box testing is a good testing strategy for a variety of reasons.

For security reasons

Sometimes, code is inherently “unsafe” : it references and uses unsafe functions from external sources, causing accidental data leakage or using the wrong structure.

Resolving performance issues

There are countless ways to develop and implement software modules for a business. Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s configured in the best way possible. If the code structure can be more efficient from a performance perspective, white-box testing can find this.

Check the link

Should transactions be recorded in your system before or after confirmation? Maybe you need to record it before and after? White-box testing allows you to examine the internal workings of paths and data flows to see if they make the most sense and/or meet system requirements.

A combination of black box and white box testing is required

Black box testing is critical to ensuring that the system works as expected. No coding knowledge is required to perform this test because it does not examine the code itself. In this case, it is even more important to understand how the software system works and the business logic. White-box testing is more difficult and needs to be done by experienced programmers using advanced tools.

Both types of testing have a large toolset to help testers solve problems, as referenced in the previous article.

Solemnly declare: the article was first published in the public number “FunTester”, prohibit third parties (except Tencent cloud) reprint, published.

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Black box testing and white box testing