What are different boundary related defects?

Like there is a separate testing methodology for each aspect of a software system, there is a testing technique called “boundary value analysis” for testing the boundary values of a software system or application.

WHAT IS BOUNDARY VALUE ANALYSIS?
- Boundary value analysis consists of test cases which include the boundary value representatives of the software program.
- Boundary values are the values which lie on the maximum and minimum edges of an equivalence partition.
- These maximum and minimum values can be either input values or output values of the software program.
- These boundary values of the software are the main seat for the defects or errors that are responsible for the faults in the software.
- This property of the boundary values finds them useful in the test cases.
- These input and output values are taken from the specifications of the component.
- The values contained in each of the sets are processed by the software system or application exactly in the same way.
- While creating the test cases for the boundary value analysis it is very important to keep in mind both the invalid and valid partitions even though there is no need for invalid partitions.
- Whenever an invalid partition is encountered by the application, the test case is designed as such that it helps the application control the partition in a proper way instead of faltering.
- The boundary is located exactly between any two set partitions and the behavior of the software system or application.
- The value at a boundary can either be maximum or minimum.
- The values at the boundaries are absolute and cannot be exceeded.
- In order to make correct assumptions about the software system or application you need to understand the boundary limits correctly.
- Apart from boundaries there are threshold values and these values cannot be exceeded unless modified.
- The threshold values can be modified to suit your needs.
- But you should keep in mind that hanging the threshold values can affect the performance of your input data.
- The boundary values are generated and verified through observation and testing. - While testing the workload is increased till the software system starts giving its maximum efficient performance.
- Some of the components of a system have capability to handle more loads than the other components.
- In such a case the average value of the load should be calculated and assigned to the software system or application.
- High latency is showed by some of the features and functionalities as compared to the others which operate under acceptable values.
- In such a case the maximum value is calculated on the basis of the usage of the features and functionality such that the overall performance of the software system or application remains unaffected and acceptable.
- If some of the components are operating on the limits exceeding those limits that were used during the testing, the acceptable limits of the other components will be affected.

Therefore, it is important to implement a good capacity management so that effective limits are established. We are now clearly stating some boundary related defects:


1. Numeric boundaries
2. Boundary on numerosity
3. Boundary within the data structures
4. Equality as a boundary
5. Boundary on space
6. Boundary in loops
7. Boundary in time
8. Errors in calculations
9. Out- dated constants
10.Invisible boundaries
11.Hardware related boundaries