Sanity Testing: Keeping Software Logic Intact

A health test is a preliminary assessment deployed to determine whether or not a software application or system is ready for further testing. The integrity testing process focuses on verifying functionality after any changes or fixes are made. The goal is to ensure that these functionalities still work as expected and that the application or system is stable enough to move on to more extensive testing.

Unlike more rigorous tests, sanity tests are superficial; they simply catch any major issues early in the development lifecycle to help you save coveted time and resources. This way, you can make any easy fixes rather than testing a fundamentally flawed application or system.

What is sanity testing?

Sanity testing, a subset of regression testing, acts as a superficial check. It targets key areas of an application or system, focusing on its functionalities. In short, a health test verifies that functions work as intended before the application or system moves on to more exhaustive testing.

Purpose and scope

Sometimes when a team fixes a specific function or makes modifications to the software, it can break or interfere with another function. Testing is important to ensure that any changes made to one aspect of the software do not negatively affect another aspect of it.

You must perform integrity testing throughout the development cycle to ensure that a specific function or specific section of the software works as intended, especially after any modifications or fixes. It's essentially a quick check to ensure all critical features work correctly before moving forward.

It's important to understand that a sanity check is not about comprehensive testing; rather, it's about confirming that the software is ready for comprehensive testing. By focusing on specific areas within a limited testing scope, a health check can efficiently identify any potential issues.

Main features

Sanity tests are distinguishable by a few key characteristics:

• Narrow scope
• Focus on specific features or sections of the software
• Fast execution time
• Unscripted nation (no detailed test scripts or predefined test cases)
• Basic validation that recent changes or fixes have not caused major problems

• Informal approach

When to use a sanity check

There are several use cases for a sanity test. Here are some of the most common reasons why a development team and testing team would implement a health test.

Post-bug fixes

• Sanity testing is essential after bug fixing. A sanity test ensures that the fix did not introduce any new problems and that the original problem was actually resolved.

After regression testing

• It is important to perform integrity testing after regression testing to confirm that any core functionalities remain unchanged and intact despite any changes made to the codebase.

After small changes

• When developers make small changes or patches to software, a sanity test validates that those changes (even small changes) have not negatively affected any core functionality.

Before launch

• Before launching a product or moving into other, more extensive testing phases, integrity testing can confirm the stability of the software.

During tight deadlines

• In agile environments or projects with tight deadlines, health testing offers a way to quickly validate critical functionality without extensive test coverage. This is especially important for urgent projects.

When the testing environment changes

• If there are any changes made to the test environment, such as an update or configuration modification, a health test helps ensure that the environment is stable for more comprehensive testing.

After Module Integration

• After adding software modules or components, integrity testing is required to quickly confirm their seamless integration into the existing system. This test verifies that the other features still work after adding them.

How Sanity Tests Differ From Other Types

There are many types of tests to check the functionality of a system and inspect it for bugs. A sanity test is just a specific type of test. See how it compares to other common test types.

Compared to smoke test

• Although a sanity test and a smoke test are surface-level tests, the sanity test focuses on specific features, while the smoke test evaluates the basic functionality of the entire system.

Compared to regression testing

• Both sanity testing and regression testing are important after introducing changes. However, regression tests check for new bugs after changes, while sanity tests check the functionality of specific features after changes.

Prioritize critical features

Several functionalities are crucial for the functioning of software. Here are some important tips for determining what makes a feature critical and evaluating the importance and impact of testing that feature.

Keep it unscripted

Sanity tests are always informal. Informal testing takes less time than more comprehensive testing, so there is room for flexibility and creativity in this approach. The improvised nature of this type of testing is enough to discover unexpected problems without delving too deeply into the entire system.

Quick feedback is crucial

Fast feedback cycles are important to keep the development cycle moving forward. It's also essential to stay aligned with your schedule and goals. A health test provides quick, actionable insights that can significantly speed up development and remediation processes.

Ensure scalability

To ensure scalability, adopt modular test design methodologies. It is also important to select testing tools that offer scalability capabilities. This allows sanity testing to adapt and expand as project requirements grow and evolve.

Document results succinctly

Unlike other types of testing, sanity testing does not necessarily result in extensive documentation. However, concise documentation of sanity test results can help with faster decision-making and subsequent testing phases.

Incorporate into continuous integration (CI)

Health tests fit into continuous integration (CI) pipelines, automating post-build health checks. This type of testing ensures that critical functionality remains deployable, increasing development efficiency and minimizing the risk of deploying faulty code to production.

Leverage team insights

There is value in involving a broader team, including developers, designers, and product managers, in sanity testing. Each team member can provide diverse insights that improve the effectiveness of sanity testing.

Focus on user experience

Testing from the user's perspective helps ensure the core user journey remains intact.

• Review user narratives and requirements to identify critical interactions
• Prioritize high-impact features over less important ones for sanity testing
• Collaborate with all key stakeholders to define key user interactions, as they may have different ideas about what is important to users
• Conduct usability studies to identify important user interactions
• Analyze user behavior data to identify frequently used features
• Include edge cases in sanity tests

Iterate and evolve test criteria

Sanity tests are intentionally flexible. They leave room for iterative review and refinement of test criteria based on past learnings and product evolution. This level of adaptability is important to maintain the relevance of sanity testing.

Common Sanity Testing Tools

The following are some of the most commonly used tools in the industry for performing health testing:

• Selenium : Selenium is an open source automation tool. It is mainly used for testing web applications. It supports multiple programming languages ​​such as Java, Python, and C#. It also allows for flexible test scripts and makes it easy to automate health testing across browsers and platforms.
• JUnit : JUnit is a popular Java testing framework for writing and running unit tests. It provides testers with annotations to define test methods and assertions to verify expected results. It simplifies the process of recording and running sanity tests.
• TestNG : TestNG is a testing framework inspired by JUnit and NUnit. Its testing features include parameterization, grouping and parallel execution. It supports various annotations and assertions to define and validate test cases.
• Robot Framework : Robot Framework is an open-source, keyword-driven test automation framework. It supports multiple testing libraries and platforms and offers a simple and readable syntax for writing test cases. It also has built-in support for web, API, and mobile testing.
• Postman : Postman is an easy-to-use API testing tool. It allows testers to create and execute API requests, automate workflows, and perform regression and integrity testing on APIs. Environment variables, collections, and assertions are just some of the features that speed up testing processes.

Benefits of Sanity Testing

There are many advantages to sanity testing, which is why it is so common throughout the development lifecycle. Here are some of the main benefits of sanity testing.

Quick feedback

• Health tests quickly determine whether new features or fixes break existing functionality. This leads to faster insights. Quick feedback can help ensure a project meets its intended timeline.

Cost efficiency

• Detecting problems early in a sanity test not only saves time, but also money. Fixing problems early can prevent the need for costly fixes later in the development process.

Narrow Focus

• Integrity tests focus on specific areas of functionality, ensuring they remain intact after changes. This narrow focus ensures that each feature works as intended before you move on to more holistic testing.

Flexibility

• Due to the unscripted nature of sanity testing, testers have the freedom to choose their approach. This means there is a lot of room for flexibility and creativity in the testing environment.

Increases confidence for launches

• Successful health testing increases the team's confidence in the software's readiness for further testing or release. They improve clarity and collaboration and ensure the software is stable enough for the team to keep moving forward.

Ideal for tight deadlines

• Because they are fast, sanity tests are suitable in agile scenarios or with tight deadlines, where quick validations are crucial.

Improves user experience

• By ensuring that core functionality works as expected throughout the development cycle, testers can ensure that the user experience will be positive.

Reduces risks

• Sanity testing helps with early detection of risks, preventing important issues from progressing to later stages of the development process. In other words, testers can resolve issues before they worsen or cause more problems, thus saving time and resources.

Disadvantages of Sanity Tests

Because sanity tests are not comprehensive, they have some disadvantages. Keep these sanity testing drawbacks and testing best practices in mind.

Limited Coverage

• Sanity tests only focus on specific software functionalities and sections. This potentially leaves other areas untested. It is important to understand that the purpose of sanity testing is not to check the entire system, but to confirm that the system is ready for more exhaustive testing.

Not comprehensive

• Because sanity testing is narrow in its approach, it may not detect all potential issues, especially any bugs or errors that fall outside the defined scope. Being aware of other potential issues and thinking outside the box can help testers ensure functionality.

Requires specialized knowledge

• Performing effective integrity testing often requires testers to have in-depth knowledge of the application. Testers need to quickly decide what to test based on any fixes or changes.

Not suitable for detailed reporting

• Sanity tests are typically not documented. This means it doesn't involve detailed reports or logs, which can be a disadvantage for teams that require comprehensive documentation.

Conclusion

Sanity testing plays a crucial role in software development by providing quick validation of specific functionalities. This type of testing ensures software stability so that testers can perform more comprehensive testing with confidence that bugs and errors will be eliminated.

While sanity tests are not rigorous, they are a quick way to assess and verify what needs to happen before exhaustive testing can take place. Overall, sanity testing helps streamline the overall testing process and ultimately improves the user experience.

Common questions

What are sanity tests?

A subset of regression testing, sanity testing, checks whether certain functionality still works correctly after minor fixes or changes have been made to the software. It is typically a form of detailed testing, although its extent varies depending on factors such as project requirements and changes that have occurred.

Regression testing is important for confirming and maintaining software quality as you add new features, fix bugs, or make other changes.

What makes sanity testing different from comprehensive testing?

Sanity testing differs from comprehensive testing because it takes a narrow approach. It focuses on specific functionalities rather than a system as a whole. The purpose of integrity testing is to verify that specific features work as they should after a team makes any changes or modifications to the software. Once all functions have been validated and any new bugs or issues have been resolved, the team can move on to more extensive testing.

Are sanity tests always unscripted?

Sanity tests are improvised in nature to accommodate diverse and evolving testing needs. This allows testers to be flexible and creative in how they test feature functions. However, project requirements and automation capabilities (or lack thereof) can change how teams test features.

What are the different types of software testing?

There are many different types of software testing. Each type aims to evaluate the reliability, functionality, performance and/or security of software applications. There are basic and more rigorous testing phases, covering different approaches. As part of a comprehensive strategy, the development and testing team may perform unit, system, acceptance, regression, and integration testing. Other types include usability, compatibility, sanity, and smoke testing.