Control Structure Testing : Branch Testing

Although basis path testing is simple and highly effective, it is not enough in itself. Next we consider variations on control structure testing that broaden testing coverage and improve the quality of white box testing. Control structure testing is a group of white-box testing methods.
* 1.0 Branch Testing
* 1.1 Condition Testing
* 1.2 Data Flow Testing
* 1.3 Loop Testing

Branch Testing : Branch Testing is a structural or white box technique, because it is conducted with reference to the code. A decision is an executable statement that may transfer control to another statement. It is also called Decision Testing. For every decision, each branch needs to be executed at least once. It ignores implicit paths that result from compound conditionals. It treats a compound conditional as a single statement.
- This example has two branches to be executed:
IF ( a equals b) THEN
statement 1
ELSE
statement 2
END IF
- This examples also has just two branches to be executed, despite the compound conditional:
IF ( a equals b AND c less than d ) THEN
statement 1
ELSE
statement 2
END IF
- This example has three branches to be executed:
IF ( a equals b) THEN
statement 1
ELSE
IF ( c equals d) THEN
statement 2
ELSE
statement 3
END IF
END IF
- Obvious decision statements are if, for, while, switch.
- Subtle decisions are return (boolean expression), ternary expressions, try-catch.