Software Testing: Principles and Practices

Chapter 3

White Box Testing

In this chapter—

• What is white box testing?

• Static testing

• Structural testing

• Challenges in white box testing

3.1 WHAT IS WHITE BOX TESTING?

Every software product is realized by means of a program code. White box testing is a way of testing the external functionality of the code by examining and testing the program code that realizes the external functionality. This is also known as clear box, or glass box or open box testing.

White box testing takes into account the program code, code structure, and internal design flow. In contrast, black box testing, to be discussed in Chapter 4, does not look at the program code but looks at the product from an external perspective.

A number of defects come about because of ...