Software Testing, 4th Edition

Chapter 6

Equivalence Class Testing

The use of equivalence classes as the basis for functional testing has two motivations: we would like to have a sense of complete testing, and, at the same time, we would hope to avoid redundancy. Neither of these hopes is realized by boundary value testing—looking at the tables of test cases, it is easy to see massive redundancy, and looking more closely, serious gaps exist. Equivalence class testing echoes the two deciding factors of boundary value testing, robustness and the single/multiple fault assumption. This chapter presents the traditional view of equivalence class testing, followed by a coherent treatment of four distinct forms based on the two assumptions. The single versus multiple fault assumption ...