The primary objective of software development is to ensure that the end product satisfies the needs of the intended users, aka the audience. To ensure customers are pleased, it's important to ensure the app is reliable, works well, and delivers high-quality content. Therefore, software testing is crucial to developing a reliable product for the market.
Testing software for bugs helps ensure customers are happy and saves a lot of money for the project. Finding bugs and errors early on, before they cause much damage, can save the programmer time, money, and work in the long run.
Regression testing is important for keeping a program's quality high because it ensures that the code still works after changes or updates have been made. Retesting makes sure that the fixed bugs in the code still work. To say it again, making and keeping working with high-quality software without a thorough testing would not be possible.
Let's look at what makes Regression and Retesting different.
What is regression testing?
The word "regress" means returning to a state or condition that was there before. This is not typically regarded as a positive aspect of the software.
This is why people who make software test for regression analysis, which is where the term "regression testing" comes from. Regression testing ensures that adding new upgrades or features to software doesn't break any updates or features that have already been released.
A regression suite is a collection of test cases designed to exercise the system's legacy features during regression testing. It is common practice to automate regression test cases because these tests accumulate over time as the software evolves or expands.
Regression Testing Example
Let's use a hypothetical example to explain regression testing.
Suppose you're a software developer whose client wants you to create an image and video editor. First, you develop important features. Once complete, you run test cases to validate app functionality. Send the app to the customer for feedback after the regression test.
While satisfied with the initial product, the client has requested certain additional functionality. You add these functionalities to the app. New codes require regression testing. You write test cases to check the app's functionality. You must also run the old test cases to ensure vital functions aren't affected.
What is retesting?
Test engineers uncover a lot of faults in software applications while testing those programs because it is their job to find bugs. After giving the developers the job of fixing these bugs again, they have to check to see if the bug is fixed. The term for this is retesting. When a feature is found to be non-functional during testing, retesting is performed to ensure that the feature is again fully functioning.
Let's look at a website that sells gadgets as an example. The products' like button was discovered to be broken during testing of the components' operation. The developer will be tasked with fixing the bug after the test engineer has identified it. The test engineer will need to retest the functionality to ensure it functions properly when the developer rolls back the changes.
The main distinction between retesting and regression testing is that the latter is meant to check for new flaws in the software, while the former is meant to test only the ones you know about.
An Example of Retesting
Let's suppose there's a program that tracks everyone enrolled in a given institution. Add, Save, Remove, and Update are four of the application's available options. The 'Save' button should save the student's information, but it does not. All other buttons function as expected. The tester noticed this flaw and reported it. The developer receives the notification of this problem and promptly resolves it. Once the problem has been resolved, it is returned to the tester. The 'Save' button functionality was all that was tested this time around. It's termed "re-testing" when anything like this happens.
The Advantages of Performing Regression Tests
Regression testing has become an absolute necessity in today's ever-changing and increasingly competitive market. The ultimate success of regression testing is directly proportional to the software market's growth. In the same way as functional tests guarantee that the program will perform as expected, regression tests must be carried out during each sprint and stage to guarantee that the application will remain stable.
One of the numerous benefits of regression testing is that it provides the end users with the confidence that the new code modifications will not affect the functionalities that are already present in the software.
Because the end users will experience the issues, the Agile DevOps team must not make the compromise of bypassing the regression cycle. The integrity and reputation of the software business are put in jeopardy as a result of this issue.
The testing team needs to thoroughly understand the benefits of regression testing, which are the primary reasons why it should be included in every test cycle.
- The fault in the software can be found more easily with the assistance of regression testing, which detects undefined integrations between the different modules of an application. The program can be made more resilient to inconsistencies by utilising regression testing. This gives support to the testing teams so that the product can be released more quickly while maintaining its quality.
- The practice of regression testing ensures that, despite these ongoing additions, the application continues to function normally and maintains its cohesiveness. Automated regression testing yields answers much more quickly and enables testing to be repeated for releases that are quite similar. This facilitates the continuous tracking of errors of any kind that may occur within an application.
- The testing process can be significantly increased using automated regression testing, which also helps to cut the testing lifespan in half. Automated scripts can also be run nightly on multiple machines simultaneously, which is a convenient option. When the automated regression test suite has been completed and is available for use in the application's execution, the testing resources will be free to concentrate on other parts of the application that call for their particular expertise.
- It helps gain consumer faith and, as a result, achieves a higher Customer Satisfaction Index), which, in the end, can be viewed as a primary cause of expanding the firm.
- It assures that a fix will not have an unfavorable impact on existing functionality. The team is responsible for ensuring that any changes made to the program do not adversely affect any of the previously implemented features while simultaneously adding new ones.
- It can assist cut down on wasteful spending that accidents in production would otherwise cause. By utilizing automated software testing solutions, costs associated with the total project can be significantly reduced.
- The implementation of regression testing also helps with the implementation of a continuous integration setup. In this setup, whenever a developer pushes a code commit, a build is triggered, and after the build is complete, the regressions test suite is automatically run to ensure that the software as a whole function without any hiccups.
- The same automated test scripts can be reused for testing and adjusted on a need-basis, enabling automated regression test cases to save significant time during execution.
- It encourages the enhancement of the product's quality and ensures that any alterations that have been done do not affect the fundamental capabilities that have already been tested and confirmed.
- Manual and automated regression testing both have their place in software development. Make sure you have a procedure for changing the scripts used for regression testing by the business's goals. The adoption of automation in testing process can result in significant cost savings for the project. The most significant benefit of regression testing is considered to be automation.
The benefits of regression tests outweigh the potential drawbacks of not doing so. Before releasing the program to the public, it is possible, via regression testing, to find and correct any errors that may have been introduced.
Disadvantages of regressive testing
Let's talk about some of the issues with doing regression testing:
- The tight deadlines present a significant challenge when doing regression testing. Every time there is an update to the software, the team in charge of testing needs to ensure that the previously established functionality is not altered. The test cases for the regression need to be conducted multiple times within the confines of the shortened regression periods in agile.
- When performing regression testing, sometimes it can be challenging to optimise the test cases. It becomes increasingly challenging to maintain the same number of automated test cases with each new sprint because the scale of the regression testing increases. It is now necessary to adjust the regression test cases to accommodate these modifications.
- Even with automation, performing regression testing requires repeatedly running test cases that have already been created. The process of finishing the regression cycle consumes a significant amount of time. The number of times regression testing needs to be done only continues to increase with each new extra feature added.
- When someone new joins the team in the middle of a project, it could be difficult for them to grasp what is changing and how it will affect other aspects of the project.
- It is necessary to have a stable environment to conduct regression testing to ensure that the testing goes smoothly. Environmental factors that arise during the running of regression tests have the potential to slow down the execution process simply. If this happens at regular intervals, we might also have to make concessions about the number of testers we have working to find and report bugs.
As regression tests are almost always automated, testers must be able to write test scripts for a variety of test cases. It can be done with Selenium or LambdaTest, where the method of defining the test remains the same, but the method of running it is on a real device cloud. As a result, LambdaTest makes automated testing on desktops and mobile devices quick and convenient.
You can automated the trickier test cases with LambdaTest.
LambdaTest lets you test websites and mobile apps manually and automatically across 3000+ browsers, devices, and OSes.
Advantages of performing Retesting
The following is a list of a few of the benefits of retesting:
- It demonstrates that the problem has been resolved and that everything is operating as it should.
- The overall quality of the product or service is elevated as a result.
- Due to the fact that it is restricted to a particular problem or any particular feature, the verification process takes significantly less time.
- It does not call for the establishment of a new environment in any way. Retesting is carried out using the same data and environment as before but with the newly built application.
Disadvantages of Retesting
The following is a list of some of the drawbacks associated with repeated testing:
- It requires a new build to verify that the bug still exists.
- After the testing has begun, the only thing that can be obtained are the test cases for subsequent testing; prior to that point, nothing can be done.
- It is not possible to automate the retesting of the test cases.
- Because the test failure cases need to be executed, more work and time will need to be put into it.
Conclusion
Even though both retesting and regression testing are repeated in character and appear to have a purpose in an application that overlaps with one another, these two types of testing are fairly distinct. Therefore, retesting and regression testing frequently occur within the same testing process and are conducted in tandem with one another. On the other hand, as was discussed previously, each one serves a unique function. The purpose of retesting is to ensure that the initial bug that was discovered and corrected is operating as it should, while the purpose of regression testing is to check the application for faults that may have been caused by the modification and any unknown bugs that may still be there.
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