Today, as software development continues to change and grow, testing is crucial for quality and stability. One such methodology is sanity testing, which you can learn in the automation testing course. This control method is based on the need for a quick, focused examination of a software application’s core features. By verifying that a build is stable and ready before lengthy testing is performed, sanity testing acts as a filter. Sanity testing allows organizations to avoid spending hours of testing on a build that contains a critical flaw or a “show-stopping” fault, wasting precious testing time and effort.
Sanity Testing:
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What is a sanity test?
To understand sanity tests, first, understand how to create software. Software projects often consist of thousands of source code files. It is a complex and time-consuming task to create executable programs from these source code files. The process of creating an executable program uses “build” software and is called “Software Build.” Integrity testing is performed to determine whether adding a new module to an existing software build works as expected and can pass the next level of testing. It is a subset of regression testing and evaluates the quality of the regressions performed on the software.
Features of Sanity Tests:
Some features of the sanity test include:
Simple: Easily designed and executed.
Unscripted: Mostly unscripted.
Undocumented: Generally undocumented.
Deep Testing: Limited functionality is deeply protected.
Regression testing subset: Focuses on a smaller part of the application/software at a time.
Conducted by a tester: The tester is the person who performs the sanity test.
Coverage: Covers a basic assessment of how the software works.
What Is The Process Of Testing Sanity?
The sanity testing process includes the following steps:
Identification card:
In this step, newly added features and components are detected. Additionally, fixes shown in the code while debugging are detected.
Assessment:
These newly implemented components and features are analyzed and fixed to determine if they work as intended according to the required specifications.
Test:
A small portion of the newly linked components were tested in depth. The test will fail if these newly released components do not meet the requirements. If it meets your needs next, thorough testing of the system is performed to ensure that these functionalities do not interfere with previously installed systems and application components.
The Need for Sanity Testing In Automation
In the context of automation testing, sanity testing becomes even more vital. Automated tests are set up to run continuously and are usually initiated post-code change or in scheduled intervals. Running an automated test suite over a flaky build is a recipe for false positives, false negatives, unreliability in targeting the right problem, and unreliable test results. Therefore, sanity testing essentially acts as a gatekeeper for automation, ensuring the minimum requirements for running automated tests are checked.
Benefits of Sanity Testing
Hence, considering all the aspects mentioned above, sanity testing has several benefits, which make it an integral part of automation testing development. It allows the detection of serious bugs and prevents further thorough testing of an unstable build, which can save time and resources. It ensures that the essential features work properly, allowing further test cases to be observed and generate accurate results. Since sanity testing is a brief and well-defined suite of tests, it can be performed fast, limiting the whole testing cycle.
Characteristics Of Sanity Tests
The characteristics of effective sanity tests include the following: fast, focused, repeatable, and automation-friendly. Firstly, sanity tests should be performed quickly; they need to be executed in a short time and cover only the most vital functionalities. They should only address the most critical paths and the most critical features of an application. Secondly, sanity tests also need to be repeatable; they must be easy to return and repeat consistently across different builds or environments.
Sanity Testing In Agile Environments
Today’s Agile development takes place in a rapidly changing environment that revolves around frequent code deployment. Considering short iteration life cycles and the principles of continuous integration, sanity testing is performed to confirm that the developed project is stable enough for further extensive testing and to check its reliability.
Sanity Testing Best Practices
To make the most of sanity testing, one must use best practices, including identifying the most important application functionalities that need to be included in the sanity test suite. Sanity testing should be kept simple, concise, and easy to maintain. Automation can also benefit the test, making it easier to redistribute and conduct. Sanity test cases should be rechecked and revised in response to the changing needs and requirements as the application advances.
Conclusion
Sanity testing qualifies to be one of the key topics of the software testing course and the software development and testing process. By checking whether the primary functions of an application are well implemented, the testing serves as a quality filter, allowing the lack of testing activities for the potentially stable system. The great advantage of sanity testing is its impact on defect discovery at the early stages of software development and release, on test improvement, and acceleration of the testing process, giving more time for frequent testing cycles.
