Comprehensive study of software testing: Categories, levels, techniques, and types

Software Testing is the process of evaluating a software program to ensure that it performs its intended purpose. Software testing verifies the safety, reliability, and correct working of software. The growing need for quality software makes software testing a crucial stage in Software Development Lifecycle. There are many methods of testing software, however, the choice of method to test a given software remains a major problem in software testing. Although, it is often impossible to find all errors in software, employing the right combination of methods will make software testing efficient and successful. Knowing these software testing methods is the key to making the right selection. This paper presents a comprehensive study of software testing methods. An explanation of Testing Categories was presented first, followed by Testing Levels (and their comparison), then Testing Techniques (and their comparison). For each Testing Levels and Testing Techniques, examples of some testing types and their pros and cons were given with a brief explanation of some of the important testing types. Furthermore, a clear and distinguishable explanation of two confused and contradictory terms (Verification and Validation) and how they relate to Software Quality was provided.