Data Bugs in Software Testing

Data bugs include all bugs that arise from the specification of data objects, their formats, the number of such objects, and their initial values

Data Bugs are atleast as common as bugs in code, but they are often treated as if they did not exist at all

Code Migrates Data: Software is evolving towards programs in which more and more of the control and processing functions are stored in tables

Because of this, there is an increasing awareness that bugs in code are only half the battle and the data problems should be given equal attention

Dynamic Data Vs Static Data:

Dynamic data are transitory. Whatever their purpose, their lifetime is relatively short, typically the processing time of one transaction

A storage object may be used to hold dynamic data of different types, with different formats, attributes and residues

Dynamic data bugs are due to leftover garbage in a shared resource

This can be handled in one of the three ways:

Clean up after the use by the user

Common clean up by the resource manager

No clean up

Static Data are fixed in form and content. They appear in the source code or database directly or indirectly

Example: A number, a string of characters, or a bit pattern

Compile time processing will solve the bugs caused by static data

Information, Parameter and Control:

Static or Dynamic data can serve in one of three roles, or in combination of roles:

As a parameter

For Control

For information

Content, Structure and Attributes:

Content:

It can be actual bit pattern, character string or number put into a data structure

It is a pure bit pattern and has no meaning unless it is interpreted by a hardware or software processor

All data bugs result in the corruption or misinterpretation of content

Structure:

It relates to the size, and numbers that describe the data objects, that is memory location used to store the content ( for example, a two dimensional array)

Attributes:

It relates to the specification meaning that is the semantics associated with the contents of a data object (for example, an integer, an alphanumereic string, a subroutine)

The severity and distinction of bugs increases as we go from content to attributes, because the things get less formal in that direction

Share on Google Plus

About Data Sciences by Venu

Hi, My name is Venugopala Chary and I'm Currently working as Associate Professor in Reputed Engineerng College, Hyderabad. I have B.Tech and M.tech in regular from JNTU Hyderabad. I have 11 Years of Teaching Experience for both B.Tech and M.Tech Courses.