SOFTWARE TESTING

THE IDEA OF TEST COVERAGE

Test coverage is a very important idea because it provides a quantitative assessment of the extent and quality of testing. In other words, it answers the question ‘how much testing have you done?‘ in a way that is not open to interpretation. Statements such as ‘I‘m nearly finished‘, or ‘I‘ve done two weeks‘ testing‘ or ‘I‘ve done everything in the test plan‘ generate more questions than they answer. They are statements about how much testing has been done or how much effort has been applied to testing, rather than statements about how effective the testing has been or what has been achieved. We need to know about test coverage for two very important reasons:

• It provides a quantitative measure of the quality of the testing ...