Glass Box Testing

Software testing approaches that examine the program structure and derive test data from the program logic. Structural testing is sometimes referred to as clear-box testing since white boxes are considered opaque and do not really permit visibility into the code.

Synonyms:

1) White Box Testing

2) Structural Testing

3) Clear Box Testing

4) Open BoxTesting

Types of Glass Box Testing:

1) Static and Dynamic Analysis: static analysis techniques do not necessitate the execution of the software, dynamic analysis is what is generally considered as ``testing``, i.e. it involves running the system.

2) Statement Coverage: Testing performed where every statement is executed at least once.

3) Branch Coverage: Running a series of tests to ensure that all branches are tested at least once.

4) Path Coverage: Testing all paths.

5) All-Definition-use-path coverage: All paths between the definition of a variable and the use of that definition are now identified and tested.

Advantages:

1) Forces test developer to reason carefully about implementation

2) Approximates the partitioning done by execution equivalence

3) Reveals errors in "hidden" code

4) Beneficent side-effects

5) Optimizations


Disadvantages:


1) Expensive

2) Miss cases omitted in the code