What is Functional Testing? Types & Examples
Thomas Hamilton
What is Functional Testing?
Functional Testing is a type of software testing that validates the software system against the functional requirements/specifications. The purpose of Functional tests is to test each function of the software application, by providing appropriate input, verifying the output against the Functional requirements.
Functional testing mainly involves black box testing and it is not concerned about the source code of the application. This testing checks User Interface, APIs, Database, Security, Client/Server communication and other functionality of the Application Under Test. The testing can be done either manually or using automation.
What do you test in Functional Testing?
The prime objective of Functional testing is checking the functionalities of the software system. It mainly concentrates on –
- Mainline functions: Testing the main functions of an application
- Basic Usability: It involves basic usability testing of the system. It checks whether a user can freely navigate through the screens without any difficulties.
- Accessibility: Checks the accessibility of the system for the user
- Error Conditions: Usage of testing techniques to check for error conditions. It checks whether suitable error messages are displayed.
How to do Functional Testing
Following is a step by step process on How to do Functional Testing :
- Understand the Functional Requirements
- Identify test input or test data based on requirements
- Compute the expected outcomes with selected test input values
- Execute test cases
- Compare actual and computed expected results
Functional Testing Types
Here are Examples of Functional Testing Types
- Unit testing
- Smoke testing
- User Acceptance
- Integration Testing
- Regression testing
- Localization
- Globalization
- Interoperability
Functional Vs Non-Functional Testing:
| Functional Testing | Non-Functional Testing |
|---|---|
| Functional testing is performed using the functional specification provided by the client and verifies the system against the functional requirements. | Non-Functional testing checks the Performance, reliability, scalability and other non-functional aspects of the software system. |
| Functional testing is executed first | Non-functional testing should be performed after functional testing |
| Manual Testing or automation tools can be used for functional testing | Using tools will be effective for this testing |
| Business requirements are the inputs to functional testing | Performance parameters like speed, scalability are inputs to non-functional testing. |
| Functional testing describes what the product does | Nonfunctional testing describes how good the product works |
| Easy to do Manual Testing | Tough to do Manual Testing |
Examples of Functional testing are
|
Examples of Non-functional testing are
|
Functional Testing Tools
Here is a list of popular Functional Testing Tools. They are explained as follows:
1) testRigor
testRigor is most advanced codeless UI end-to-end functional testing tool. Automate test cases in plain English, no matter how long or complex they are.
Key Features:
- Create tests 15x faster compared to Selenium.
- Reduce test maintenance by up to 99.5%.
- No-code commands and tests everyone on the team will understand.
- Integrations with CI/CD and Test case management.
- Email & SMS testing.
- Web + Mobile + API steps in one test. Cross-platform and cross-browser support.
- Run 1000s of tests and get results in under 30 minutes.
- Free Trial: 14-Day Free Trial
2) Selenium
Popular Open Source Functional Testing Tool
Selenium is an open-source web automation tool, currently in demand, and widely used tool in the market. It is one of the best QA automation tools that can automate across multiple OS Like Windows, Mac, and Linux and browsers like Firefox, Chrome, IE, as well as Headless Browsers. Check our Selenium tutorial.
Key Features:
- Selenium test script can be written in programming languages like Java, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl and JavaScript
- Selenium offers record and playback features with its browser add-on Selenium IDE
- The powerful Selenium WebDriver helps you create more complex and advanced automation scripts.
- Price: Free to use
3) SoapUI
This is an open source functional testing tool, mainly used for Web service testing. It supports multiple protocols such as HTTP, SOAP, and JDBC.
Key Features:
- The GUI of the software is easy to handle and use
- Vulnerability testing feature helps to secure website from hackers and viruses.
- It is possible to do the detailed analysis using its reporting feature.
- The SQL Injection feature, which can be utilized to perform functional testing, provides some standard SQL queries and methods to identify the weak areas of the application.
Download Link: https://www.soapui.org/downloads/download-soapui-pro-trial.html
4) QTP – Very user-friendly Functional Test tool by HP
5) JUnit– Used mainly for Java applications and this can be used in Unit and System Testing
Conclusion
In software testing, functional testing, which is a process of testing functionalities of the system, ensures that the system is working as per the functionalities specified in the business document. The goal of functional testing in software testing is to check whether the system is functionally perfect!!!
