What is destructive testing?

Destructive testing is used to cause the program to purposely fail to test its robustness. Destructive testing is not carried out to test the functionalities of a system. Instead, it is used to test how a system responds to unusual and bottleneck scenarios. This helps to discover points of failure for a system as well.

Reasons for destructive testing

Destructive testing is carried out for the following reasons:

  • It helps identify bottlenecks of the system and points of failure.
  • It helps identify unpredictable behavior that can occur within a system.

Carrying out destructive testing

Destructive testing can be carried out using several strategies:

  • Failure point analysis: Testing is done at different stages and functional elements of the system to understand where a point of failure may occur.
  • Tester peer review: The system is tested and analyzed by a second tester who may not be familiar with the functionality to a great extent.
  • Business review: An expert may think of scenarios that can arise. These may be possibilities that a tester might have missed.
  • External sources: Asking external sources to break the system.

The illustration below gives an idea of destructive testing:

A glimpse of destructive testing

What is checked in destructive testing?

Destructive testing involves testing the following scenarios:

  • Normal software behavior
  • Improper software behavior
  • Improper inputs
  • Unpredictable outputs
  • Improper usage

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