Smoke Testing Explained

Tutorial 5 of 5

Introduction

Goal of the Tutorial:

This tutorial aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of Smoke Testing, a key concept in the world of software testing. By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to explain what Smoke Testing is, why it's important, and how to implement it in your projects.

Learning Outcomes:

  1. Understand the concept of Smoke Testing.
  2. Learn when and how to conduct Smoke Testing.
  3. Practical implementation of Smoke Testing with code examples.

Prerequisites:

Basic understanding of software development and testing is required. Familiarity with a programming language would be beneficial but not necessary.

Step-by-Step Guide

What is Smoke Testing?

Smoke Testing, also known as Build Verification Testing, is a type of software testing where the major functionalities of the application are tested to ensure they work as expected. The aim is to reject defective builds as early as possible so that the testing team doesn't waste time installing and testing the software application in detail.

When to Conduct Smoke Testing?

Smoke testing is typically conducted after a new build or version of the software is created. It's the first test that the build goes through.

How to Conduct Smoke Testing?

  1. Identify Major Functionality: The first step in smoke testing is identifying the major functionalities of the software that need to be tested.

  2. Create Test Cases: Once you've identified the functionalities, create simple test cases for them.

  3. Execute Test Cases: After creating the test cases, execute them and observe the results.

Code Examples

Let's consider a simple web-based calculator application. The major functions are addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

For smoke testing, we test these major functionalities. Here's how you can create a test case for the "addition" function in Python:

def test_add():
    # Test case for addition function
    result = addition(10, 5)
    assert result == 15, f'Expected 15, but got {result}'

In this code snippet, we're testing the addition function. If the function is working correctly, addition(10, 5) should return 15. If it does not, the test fails, and we print an error message.

Summary

In this tutorial, we've learned about Smoke Testing - its definition, when and how to conduct it. We also went through an example of how to create a simple smoke test.

To further your knowledge, you can learn about other types of testing like Sanity Testing, Regression Testing, and so on.

Practice Exercises

Exercise 1: Write a smoke test for the "subtraction" function in our calculator example.

Exercise 2: Write smoke tests for "multiplication" and "division" functions.

Exercise 3: Assume a new function "square" has been added. Write a smoke test for this function.

Remember, the goal of these tests is to ensure that the major functionality of the system is working as expected.

Solutions

Here are the solutions to the exercises above:

Solution to Exercise 1:

def test_subtract():
    # Test case for subtraction function
    result = subtract(10, 5)
    assert result == 5, f'Expected 5, but got {result}'

Solution to Exercise 2:

def test_multiply():
    # Test case for multiplication function
    result = multiply(10, 5)
    assert result == 50, f'Expected 50, but got {result}'

def test_divide():
    # Test case for division function
    result = divide(10, 5)
    assert result == 2, f'Expected 2, but got {result}'

Solution to Exercise 3:

def test_square():
    # Test case for square function
    result = square(5)
    assert result == 25, f'Expected 25, but got {result}'

Remember to practice and explore more types of testing to get a strong hold on software testing.