Static Testing and Dynamic Testing – Key Differences

We know Software testing is an essential part of software development. Static and dynamic Testing are two approaches to Testing software that are important for ensuring the software’s quality.

• Static Testing involves testing the software without running it
• Dynamic Testing involves executing the program and testing its behavior in different scenarios.

This blog will discuss the differences between static and dynamic Testing and when to use each approach.

What is Static Testing?

Static Testing is a software testing technique that involves reviewing and analyzing

• software documentation,
• design, or code

without executing the software.

It is a way of checking for errors and defects in the software by examining it in a “static” state rather than actively running it.

Static Testing aims to identify issues early in software development when they are easier and less costly to fix. By catching defects early, Static Testing can help improve the software’s overall quality and reliability. Also, it enhances maintainability and ultimately saves time and money in the long run.

Static Testing Techniques

Static Testing is a necessary software testing technique comprising two approaches: Review and Static Analysis.

Review

Reviews are a necessary feature of Static Testing. It enables testers to identify defects and issues in documentation, such as requirements and design. The importance of reviews lies in detecting the sources of failure at the earliest stage.

In software development, inadequate fixation of requirements, designs, or vagueness in the documentation causes most problems. Software testing reviews can be formal or informal, depending on the testing stage.

The four primary types of reviews in software testing are Informal, Walkthrough, Inspection, and Technical Review. Testers can contribute to a successful software development process by implementing these review techniques.

Static Analysis

This is a software testing technique involving analyzing code without executing it. Static Analysis aims to uncover structural defects in the code developers write. Those can be:

• unused or unreferenced variables,
• syntax violations,
• non-compliance with coding standards,
• dead code, and
• other programming standard violations.

Developers commonly use code analysis tools to analyze the code and identify issues. This can also help detect structural issues in code and enforce coding standards.

Tools for Static Testing

Here are some tools for Static Testing:

1. Checkstyle: This static analysis tool helps enforce coding standards for Java code. It scans code for defects and can enforce norms such as naming conventions, code formatting, and other best practices.
2. SourceMeter: SourceMeter is a powerful source code analysis platform for analyzing software systems and detecting potential defects and vulnerabilities. It can analyze code in multiple programming languages and produce reports that enable developers to make informed decisions.
3. Soot: This Java optimization framework has several analysis and transformation tools. It can optimize code for execution speed by detecting unnecessary code and improving overall code quality.
4. Lint: This static analysis tool scans code to flag programming errors, bugs, and erroneous coding practices. Lint tools help enforce coding standards and prevent errors and bugs in code.
5. SonarQube: SonarQube is an open-source platform to inspect code quality continuously. It performs static Analysis and identifies technical debt, bugs, and vulnerabilities across different programming languages.
6. PMD is a source code analyzer tool that finds issues in Java code. It detects unused variables, empty catch blocks, and other coding errors.
7. Findbugs is a bug detection tool that analyzes Java bytecode to identify defects and bugs. It identifies issues such as null pointer exceptions and potential security flaws.

Using these tools for Static Testing helps developers identify and fix issues in code earlier in the development process, leading to better-quality software and, ultimately, fewer issues in production.

What is Dynamic Testing?

This software testing technique involves executing the software and testing its behavior in different scenarios. During dynamic testing, testers create test cases and conduct test runs to identify defects and ensure the software meets the specified requirements. This testing aims to validate the software’s functionality, performance, and security and to ensure that it behaves as expected by testing it against various inputs, expected outputs, and error conditions.

Dynamic Testing Techniques

Dynamic testing employs various techniques to analyze and evaluate the software’s behavior when running. Some common dynamic testing techniques include:

• Black-box testing: This technique tests the software’s functionality without delving into the internal workings of the software. The tester inputs the data and checks if the output is as expected.
• White-box testing: This technique tests the software’s internal implementation details. The tester tests specific functions, methods, or code snippets to ensure they work as expected.
• Grey-box testing: Grey-box testing is a combination of black-box and white-box testing. In this technique, the tester has partial knowledge of the internal workings of the software, which helps to create more comprehensive test cases.
• Regression testing: We perform regression testing when we add new features to existing software. It ensures that changes in the software do not impact existing features negatively.
• Performance testing: Performance testing evaluates the software’s response time, load capacity, and stability under heavy usage to ensure it can handle real-world situations.
• Security testing: Security testing ensures the software is safe and secure from malicious attacks, including data breaches, unauthorized access, and hacking attempts.

These dynamic testing techniques help testers to assess software behavior and identify issues or defects that can compromise the software’s functionality, reliability, or security.

Tools for Dynamic Testing

Many tools exist for performing dynamic testing of software. Here are some major tools used for dynamic software testing:

1. Testsigma: Testsigma is a cloud-based test automation platform that enables teams to automate their tests for web, mobile, APIs, and desktop applications. It provides an AI-powered no-code approach to test creation, the test cases are as easy to author, as writing sentences in English. Testsigma lets you execute your tests on multiple browsers and devices via cloud as well as local devices.

Testsigma readily integrates with all popular CICD and bug tracking tools like JIRA, Jenkins, GitHub, and more. Testsigma’s intelligent testing engine reduces the cost and time required by allowing teams to create and maintain automated tests with minimal effort. Its unique approach of using english sentences for test authoring makes it easy for non-technical testers to automate their tests and achieve faster time-to-market.

Testsigma is also available as an open source and free version.

Start automating your dynamic tests, in minutes, with Testsigma Open Source

2. Selenium: Selenium is a popular open-source tool used for automated web testing. This is tool made specially for cross browser testing.

3. Postman: Postman offers an easy-to-use, versatile, dynamic testing tool for validating complex APIs across different scenarios. This tool makes it easy to create and execute aPI test cases.

4. Appium: Appium is an open-source mobile automation testing tool. It offers capabilities to validate the user interface and behavior of mobile applications. One of the key features of Appium is its support for multiple platforms, such as iOS and Android.

5. JMeter: JMeter is a popular open-source load testing tool. It allows testers to evaluate the software application’s performance, scalability, and stability under heavy load and stress conditions. JMeter is especially useful for the dynamic testing of web applications, websites, and web services.

Static Testing Vs. Dynamic Testing

Features	Static Testing	Dynamic Testing
Definition	A testing technique that reviews and analyzes software documentation, source code, and other artifacts before execution.	A testing technique that evaluates software behavior when it is executed.
Objective	To identify defects and improve software quality early in development.	To validate the software’s functionality and behavior in different scenarios.
Types of Testing	Code review, walk-through, and inspection	Unit, integration, system, acceptance, performance, security, and user acceptance testing.
Timing	It begins early in the software development process and continues forever.	Conducted after coding and development are complete.
Results	Includes reviews, walkthroughs, and inspections of the software.	Includes functional, integration, system, performance, and usability tests

Summary

In summary, static testing is a non-execution approach performed at the early stage of development that identifies defects through code review, walkthrough, and inspection techniques. Dynamic testing is another approach that validates the software’s performance, scalability, functionality, and reliability through various testing techniques such as black-box, white-box, and grey-box testing. This testing is done while the code is being executed in a run-time environment.

Both testing techniques play a vital role in software development and complement each other by thoroughly reviewing the software’s quality.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is static and dynamic testing in agile?

When, just like the software development activities in Agile, the static and dynamic testing is also done in iterations according to the tasks taken up for each iteration, it is termed “static and dynamic testing in Agile”.

Is black-box testing static or dynamic?

Black-box testing is dynamic testing.The main objective of black-box testing is to assess the software’s functionality, usability, performance, security, and other non-functional aspects.

What are static and dynamic testing tools?

Some examples of static testing tools include SonarQube, Crucible, Code Collaborator, and FindBugs. Some examples of dynamic testing tools include Testsigma, Selenium, SoapUI, JMeter, and LoadRunner.