Importance And Need For Database Testing

Database Testing

It is one of the main testings which requires by the tester to experience in checking tables, writing queries and procedures. Testing should be performed in a web application or desktop and database can be used in the application like SQL or Oracle.

Major decisions about the testing are that they are constrained to the user interface only, but a little bit of information is entered by the user which is stored at the database which is equally respected while performing testing.

The need for Database Testing

As there are a lot of active user activities performed over the Internet every second and lot of data is being generated in the form of browsing, filling forms, online marketing, and marking attendance, etc. The need for database testing plays a major role in maintaining data consistency, integrity, and security and the following functions are adopted for data validation like:

Data Mapping - Data can be created by the user and can be moved from one place to another i.e. from the user interface to backend

ACID validations - There are some properties of the ACID validations:

Atomicity: It means that the transaction either passes or fails. This means that even if a single part of the transaction fails- means that the complete transaction has failed. Usually, this is called the “all-or-nothing” rule.

Consistency: A transaction will always result in a valid state of the DataBase

Isolation: If there are multiple transactions and they are executed all at once, the result/state of the DataBase should be the same as if they were executed one after the other.

Durability: Once a transaction is done and committed, then no external factors like power loss or crash should be able to change it

Data Integrity: Whenever data edited or changes then the latest information will display on the user interface so it can reflect in all places i.e. from the backend as well.

Business Rule Constraint - For the complex database, testers need to perform testing on many levels and knowledge about the SQL queries to validate the complex components.

The most commonly used command is “Select”.

Select * from <tablename> where <condition>

Apart from Select command, SQL has 3 most important types of commands:

    DML: Data manipulation language

    DCL: Data control language

    DDL: Data definition language

Let us see the syntax for the most commonly used SQL statements.

Data Definition language: It uses CREATE, RENAME, DROP, ALTER, and TRUNCATE to handle tables (and indexes).

Data Manipulation language is a computer programming language that includes statements to ADD, UPDATE and DELETE records.

Data control language:  is a syntax similar to a computer programming language that deals with giving authorization to users for manipulation and access to the data. Grant and Revoke are the two statements used.

Testers need to know the following SQL queries to perform the database testing and Some of The Most Important SQL Commands:

    SELECT - extracts data from a database

    UPDATE - updates data in a database

    DELETE - deletes data from a database

    INSERT INTO - Push new data into a database

    CREATE DATABASE - creates a new database

    ALTER DATABASE - modifies a database

    CREATE TABLE - creates a new table

    ALTER TABLE - modifies a table

    DROP TABLE - deletes a table

    CREATE INDEX - creates an index (search key)

    DROP INDEX - deletes an index