UNIT – 1

part2

FLOW GRAPHS AND

PATH TESTING
 Path Testing Basics
 Path Testing: Path Testing is a path wise
testing technique in the program.

 Path testing techniques are the oldest of all

structural test techniques.
 Control Flow Graphs
 The control flow graph(or flow graph) is
a graphical representation of a
program.

 The flow graph is similar to the earlier

flowchart
 Flow Graph Elements
 A flow graph contains four different
types of elements.
 Process Block

 Decisions

 Case Statements

 Junctions
 Process Block
 process block is a piece of straight line code of one
statement or more number of statements.

 A process has one entry and one exit.

 It can consists of a single statement or instruction, a

sequence of statements or instructions, or a sequence of
these.

entry PROCESS exit

 Decisions
 A decision is a condition in program ,
based on this condition the statements
are executed.
 Most of the decisions are two-way but
some are three way branches in control
flow.
YES: then A is biggest
number

A>B
? NO: then B is biggest
number
 Decisions
 Here the condition is A>B and the decision
is based on the condition .
 If A>B is true then “1.YES: then A is

biggest number “is executed otherwise,

“2.NO: then B is biggest number” is
executed.
1.YES: then A is
biggest number

A>B
?
2.NO: then B is biggest
number
 Case Statements
 A case statement is a multi-way branch
or decisions.
 In case statement ,multiple cases are
there like case1,case2,…….case N.
 Based on ‘Case of’ value the
appropriate ‘case’ is executed.

1 Case 1
Case of
21 Case 2

N Case N
 Junctions
 A junction is a point in the program
where the control flow can merge.

Junctions 1 2
 Path Testing- paths, nodes and
links
 Path: a path through a program is a sequence of
instructions or statements that starts at an entry,
junction, or decision and ends at another, or possibly
the same junction, decision, or exit.
 A path may go through several junctions, processes,
or decisions, one or more times.
 Paths consists of segments.
 The segment is a link – a single process that lies
between two nodes.
 A path segment is succession of consecutive links
that belongs to some path.
 The length of path measured by the number of
links in it and not by the number of the instructions
or statements executed along the path.
 The name of a path is the name of the nodes along
the path.
 Fundamental Path Selection
Criteria

 There are many paths between the entry and exit of a

typical routine.

 Defining complete testing:

 Exercise every path from entry to exit
 Exercise every statement or instruction at least once
 Exercise every branch and case statement, in each direction, at
least once
Path selection criteria - example
If ( X<0) go to statement number 200
X=X+A
200: X=X+A
300: CONTINUE

yes

X=X+A
X<0 200 X=X+A 300
? no
 Path Testing Criteria
 Any testing strategy based on paths must at least
both exercise every instruction and take branches in
all directions.

 So we have explored three different testing criteria

or strategies out of a potentially infinite family of
strategies.
1. Path testing
2. Statement testing
3. Branch testing
 Path Testing (Pinfinity)
 Path Testing: execute all possible control
flow paths through the program: typically,
this is restricted to all possible entry/exit
paths through the program.
 If we achieve this prescription, we are said to
have achieved 100% path coverage. This
is the strongest criterion in the path testing
strategy family: it is generally impossible to
achieve.
 Statement Testing (P1)
 Execute all statements in the program at least
once under some test. If we do enough tests
to achieve this, we are said to have achieved
100% statement coverage.
 An alternate equivalent characterization is to
say that we have achieved 100% node
coverage. We denote this by C1.
 This is the weakest criterion in the family
 Branch Testing ( P2)
 Execute enough tests to assure that every
branch alternative has been exercised at least
once under some test.
 If we do enough tests to achieve this
prescription, then we have achieved 100%
branch coverage.
 An alternative characterization is to say that we
have achieved 100% link coverage.
 We denote branch coverage by C2.
 Loops
 LOOP is nothing but repeat the
statement execution until condition false.
 There are only three kinds of loops with
respect to path testing:
 Nested loops
 Concatenated loops
 Horrible loops
 Nested Loops
Outer loop

Inner loop

1 2 3 4

The loop with in the loop is nothing but

NESTED LOOP.
In above diagram 1 to 4 is one loop called
outer loop , Similarly 2 to 3 is called inner
loop
 Concatenated loops
 Concatenated loops are loops exists one
loop after another loop.
 In loop1 concatenated with loop2
 If the loops cannot be on the same path,
then they are not concatenated and can be
treated as individual loops.

loop1 loop2

1 2 3 4
 Horrible loops
 A Horrible Loop is a combination of
nested loops and concatenatedloops.

1 2 3 4 5 6
 Predicates, Predicate Expressions
Predicate: The logical function evaluated at a
decision : True or False.

Compound Predicate: Two or more predicates

combined with AND, OR etc.

Path Predicate :
• A predicate associated with a path is called path
predicate.
• Every path corresponds to a succession of
True/False values for the predicates traversed on
that path.
 Path Predicate Expressions
 A path predicate expression is a set of
Boolean expressions
1. (A>B) AND (A>C)

2. (A>B) OR (A>C)

3. NOT(A>B)
 Boolean algebra notation to denote the
Boolean expression:
ABCD+EBCD=(A+E)BCD
 Testing Blindness
 Testing Blindness is a pathological
situation in which the desired path is
achieved for the wrong reason.
 There are three types of Testing Blindness:
 Assignment Blindness
 Equality Blindness
 Self Blindness
 Path Sensitizing
 The act of finding a set of solutions to the path predicate
expression is called PATH SENSITIZATION

 For any path in that set, interpret the predicates along the
path as needed to express them in terms of the input
vector.
 In general individual predicates are compound or may
become compound as a result of interpretation.
 Path Sensitizing
 Trace the path through, multiplying the individual
compound predicates to achieve a Boolean expression
such as:
A(B+C)

 Multiply out the expression to achieve a sum of products

form:
AB+AC

 If you can find a solution, then the Path Is Achievable.

 If you cant find a solution to any of the sets of

inequalities, the path is Un Achievable.
 Path Instrumentation
 Path instrumentation is what we
have to do to confirm that the outcome
was achieved by the intended path.
 Types of instrumentation methods are:
 An interpretive trace program
 Traversal marker or link marker
 The two link marker method
 Interpretive trace program
 An Interpretive Trace Program is
one that executes every statement in
order and records the intermediate
values of all calculations, the statement
labels traversed etc.,
 Traversal Marker Or Link Marker
 A simple and effective form of instrumentation is
called a Traversal Marker Or Link Marker.

 Give a Name to every link by a lower case letter.

 Instrument the links so that the link’s name is

recorded when the link is executed.
 Example – Link Marker
[i] Input A,B,C ? [j] ? [k] ?
[l]

[m]
[n]

[o] ? [p] ? [q]

[r]

[s]
 Two link marker method
 The solution to the problem of single
link marker method is to implement two
markers per link: one at the beginning
of each link and on at the end.
 The two link markers now specify the
path name and confirm both the
beginning and end of the link.
 Example - Two link marker

[i] [j] ? [k] process A Process B [l]

[m] [n]

[o]

Process C [p] ? [q]

Process D [r]
Application of Path Testing
 Integration, coverage, and paths in
called components.
 New code
 Maintenance
 Re hosting