Sanity test
From Free net encyclopedia
A sanity test or "smoke test" (note: many do not consider the terms synonymous) is a brief run-through of the main functionality of a computer program or other product. It gives a measure of confidence that the system works as expected prior to a more exhaustive round of testing.
With the evolution about test methodologies Sanity Tests are useful both for initial environment validation and future interactive increments. In large projects, it is recommended to automate it. This activity is a best practice about Test Environment Management and is the responsibility of Test Manager. The majority of the bugs initially identified are due to environment problems. A practical way to minimize the impact of the initial environment setup problems is by having a dry run of installing and using the basic features of the application software. The process of sanity test begins with the execution of some online transactions of various modules, bath programs of various modules and see whether the application runs without any hindrance or abend. This practice would help us in identifying most of the environment related problems.
Also, the name sanity test has been used to refer to various order of magnitude and other simple rule of thumb devices applied to cross-check mathematical calculations. For example, 7382 cannot be equal to 53,874 since 3002 is 90,000; the power output of a car cannot be 700 kJ since that is a unit of energy, not power (energy per unit time) and 918 x 155 is not 142135 since 918 divides by three but the answer does not (digits do not add up to a multiple of three). Similarly, a genealogy that contains four generations spanning only thirty years, or only two generations spanning a hundred years, is probably incorrect.
Further to the above, a sanity test can also be defianed as a series of questions designed so that you can score your own (mental) sanity. Additionally, somewhere like amisane.org does relative sanity ratings not based on such tests.