Test Case Space Analysis

Test Case Space Analysis

Some ideas about writing tests.

I had a dream about "Test Space". My final year project was "The State Space representation of rectifier Systems" and it took me a term to understand the title.

Write down a list of test cases.

"Test Case Space" is like "State Space" but for testing.

So each test has a position in the Test Case Space which has a very rich range of dimensions.

A telephone service has an A-leg , a B-leg and a C-leg, and different call flows depending on number dialled.

The A-leg call can be made from one of a big list of device configurations.

The dialled number can also determin a call flow.

The B-leg can be a number of different outcomes, like busy, or answered by a voice device or modem.

My computer has a Part number made up of many fields. So a simple Model name may be appended by a string of letters to represent CPU speed, Disk size, and many other configurations terms.

Testcases are similar and can be titled similar to a part number.

ICs have complex part numbers as an IC can have a range of package types, speeds.

How many tests?

Integer numbers use positional notation so the number 123 is 1x100 + 2x10 + 3x1

You can code the tests using a similar idea.

Some test dimensions are not integers, e.g. make a call and hold the call open for a finite time, the time is a real number, but may be quantized.

Sorting could be done like a number. You may want to report test results based on different parameters.

Some computer languages use positional parameters in functioanl calls, some allow lists of optional parameter_name=value

Sorting of test cases may need to be ordered by different parameters depending on what needs to be reported.

So the Test Case Space could have a very large number of test cases, which may be an infinite number of cases.

A test case may record a list of measurements, or repeated to get each measurement.

This all gets very complicated.

Picking a list of tests based on a random test case may be a simple approach

It may be that the test cases are randomly picked and recorded by automation analysis of test logs.

The tests capuld be plotted on a Test Case Space and tests added where there is a lack of results.