Decision Tables
Dr. Rohit Rastogi
Associate Professor,
Computer Science & Engineering Department,
ABES EC, Ghaziabad
Affiliated to Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, Uttar
Pradesh, Lucknow
Basic
Decision table technique is one of the widely used case
design techniques for black box testing.
This is a systematic approach where various input
combinations and their respective system behavior are
captured in a tabular form.
Conti…
A decision table is a good way to settle different
combination inputs with their corresponding outputs
and is also called a cause-effect table.
◦ The reason to call cause-effect table is a related logical
diagramming technique called cause-effect graphing that is
used to obtain the decision table.
◦ The information represented in decision tables can also be
represented as decision trees or in a programming language
using if-then-else and switch-case statements.
Importance of Decision Table
Decision tables are very helpful in test design techniques.
Helps testers to search effects of combinations: It helps testers to
search the effects of combinations of different inputs and other
software states that must correctly implement business rules.
Helps to start complex business rules: It provides a regular way
of starting complex business rules, that is helpful for developers
as well as for testers.
Helps in the development process: It assists in the development
process with the developer to do a better job. Testing with all
combinations might be impractical.
Conti…
Used in testing: A decision table is basically an
outstanding technique used in both testing and
requirements management.
Helps to prepare requirements: It is a structured
exercise to prepare requirements when dealing with
complex business rules.
Helps to model complicated logic: It is also used to
model complicated logic.
Conti…
A decision table is an outstanding technique used for
testing and requirements management.
◦ Decision tables are very much helpful in test design technique.
◦ It helps testers to search the effects of combinations of different
inputs and other software states that implement business rules.
◦ It provides a regular way of stating complex business rules
which benefits the developers as well as the testers.
Conti…
◦ It assists in the development process with the developer to do a
better job. Testing with all combination might be impractical.
◦ It the most preferable choice for testing and requirements
management.
◦ It is a structured exercise to prepare requirements when
dealing with complex business rules.
◦ It is also used in model complicated logic.
Advantages of Decision Table
Easy conversion of business flow to test case: Any complex
business flow can be easily converted into test scenarios and
test cases using this technique.
Works iteratively: Decision tables work iteratively which
means the table created at the first iteration is used as input
tables for the next tables. The iteration is done only if the
initial table is not satisfactory.
Simple to understand: Simple to understand and everyone
can use this method to design the test scenarios & test cases.
Conti…
Provides complete test case coverage: It provides
complete coverage of test cases which helps to reduce
the rework on writing test scenarios & test cases.
Guarantees every combination is considered: These
tables guarantee that we consider every possible
combination of condition values. This is known as its
completeness property.
Conti…
Some more advantages of using decision table in
software testing such as:
◦ Any complex business flow can be easily converted into the test
scenarios & test cases using this technique.
◦ Decision tables work iteratively. Therefore, the table created at
the first iteration is used as the input table for the next tables.
The iteration is done only if the initial table is not satisfactory.
Conti…
◦ Simple to understand and everyone can use this method to
design the test scenarios & test cases.
◦ It provides complete coverage of test cases which help to
reduce the rework on writing test scenarios & test cases.
◦ These tables guarantee that we consider every possible
combination of condition values. This is known as its
completeness property.
Example
A Decision Table is a tabular representation of inputs
versus rules, cases or test conditions. Let’s take an
example and see how to create a decision table for a
login screen:
Conti…
The condition states that if the user provides the correct
username and password the user will be redirected to
the homepage.
If any of the input is wrong, an error message will be
displayed.
Conti…
Conditions Rule 1 Rule 2 Rule 3 Rule 4
Username F T F T
Password F F T T
Output E E E H
In the above example,
T – Correct username/password
F – Wrong username/password
E – Error message is displayed
H – Home screen is displayed
Conti…
Case 1 – Username and password both were wrong. The
user is shown an error message.
Case 2 – Username was correct, but the password was
wrong. The user is shown an error message.
Case 3 – Username was wrong, but the password was
correct. The user is shown an error message.
Case 4 – Username and password both were correct, and the
user is navigated to the homepage.
SRS Document
SRS Document
A Software Requirements Specification (SRS) document
is a blueprint or roadmap that describes the technical
requirements and functionality of a software system.
It'sthe sole source of truth for all teams involved in
development, including marketing, testing, and
maintenance.
SRS also defines the purpose of the system and its
components, and includes use cases for how users will
SRS Document
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 PURPOSE
Purpose of this document is to build an online system to
manage flights and passengers to ease the flight management.
<<Include the purpose as applicable to your project >>
1.2 DOCUMENT CONVENTIONS
Document uses the following conventions. << Include the
conventions as per your application >>
DB Database
DDB Distributed Database
ER Entity Relationship
Conti…
1.3 INTENDED AUDIENCE AND READING SUGGESTIONS
Project is a prototype for the flight management system
and it is restricted within the college premises.
It has been implemented under the guidance of college
professors.
Project is useful for the flight management team and as
well as to the passengers.
Conti…
1.4 PROJECT SCOPE
The purpose of the online flight management system is to ease
flight management and to create a convenient and easy-to-
use application for passengers, trying to buy airline tickets.
The system is based on a relational database with its flight
management and reservation functions.
We will have a database server supporting hundreds of major
cities around the world as well as thousands of flights by
various airline companies.
Above all, we hope to provide a comfortable user experience
along with the best pricing available.
Conti…
1.5 REFERENCES
https://krazytech.com/projects
Fundamentals of database systems by ramez elmarsi and
shamkant b.navathe
2. OVERALL DESCRIPTION
2.1 PRODUCT PERSPECTIVE
A distributed airline database system stores the following
information.
◦ Flight details: It includes the originating flight terminal and
destination terminal, along with the stops in between, the number
of seats booked/available seats between two destinations etc.
◦ Customer description: It includes customer code, name, address,
and phone number. This information may be used for keeping the
records of the customer for any emergency or for any other kind
of information.
◦ Reservation description: It includes customer details, code
number, flight number, date of booking, date of travel.
Conti…
2.2 PRODUCT FEATURES
The major features of the airline database system as
shown in below entity–relationship model (ER model)
The diagram shows the layout of airline database system
– entity–relationship model
2.3 USER CLASS and CHARACTERISTICS
Users of the system should be able to retrieve flight information
between two given cities with the given date/time of travel from
the database.
A route from city A to city B is a sequence of connecting flights
from A to B such that: a) there are at most two connecting stops,
excluding the starting city and destination city of the trip, b) the
connecting time is between one to two hours.
The system will support two types of user privileges, Customer,
and Employee. Customers will have access to customer functions,
and the employees will have access to both customer and flight
management functions.
The customer should be able to do the following functions:
Conti…
Make a new reservation
◦ One-way
◦ Round-Trip
◦ Multi-city
◦ Flexible Date/time
◦ Confirmation
Cancel an existing reservation
View his itinerary
Conti…
Employee should have following management
functionalities:
CUSTOMER FUNCTIONS.
◦ Get all customers who have seats reserved on a given flight.
◦ Get all flights for a given airport.
◦ View flight schedule.
◦ Get all flights whose arrival and departure times are on
time/delayed.
◦ Calculate total sales for a given flight.
Conti…
ADMINISTRATIVE
◦ Add/Delete a flight
◦ Add a new airport
◦ Update fare for flights.
◦ Add a new flight leg instance.
◦ Update departure/arrival times for flight leg instances.
Each flight has a limited number of available seats.
There are a number of flights that depart from or arrive
at different cities on different dates and times.
2.4 OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
The operating environment for the airline management
system is as listed below. <<Include the details as per
your application >>
distributed database
client/server system
Operating system: Windows.
database: sql+ database
platform: vb.net/Java/PHP
2.5 DESIGN and IMPLEMENTATION
CONSTRAINTS
The global schema, fragmentation schema, and
allocation schema.
SQL commands for the above queries/applications
How the response for applications 1 and 2 will be
generated? Assuming these are global queries. Explain how
various fragments will be combined to do so.
Implementthe database at least using a centralized database
management system.
2.6 ASSUMPTION DEPENDENCIES
Let us assume that this is a distributed airline management
system and it is used in the following application:
◦ A request for booking/cancellation of a flight from any source to any
destination, giving connected flights in case no direct flight between
the specified Source-Destination pair exist.
◦ Calculation of high fliers (most frequent fliers) and calculating
appropriate reward points for these fliers.
Assuming both the transactions are single transactions, we
have designed a distributed database that is geographically
dispersed at four cities Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkatta
as shown in fig. below.
3. SYSTEM FEATURES
DESCRIPTION and PRIORITY
The airline reservation system maintains information on
flights, classes of seats, personal preferences, prices, and
bookings.
Of course, this project has a high priority because it is
very difficult to travel across countries without prior
reservations.
Conti…
STIMULUS/RESPONSE SEQUENCES
◦ Search for Airline Flights for two Travel cities
◦ Displays a detailed list of available flights and makes a
“Reservation” or Books a ticket on a particular flight.
◦ Cancel an existing Reservation.
Conti…
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Other system features include:
◦ DISTRIBUTED DATABASE: Distributed database implies that a
single application should be able to operate transparently on
data that is spread across a variety of different databases and
connected by a communication network as shown in the below
figure.
Conti…
◦ CLIENT/SERVER SYSTEM: The term client/server refers
primarily to an architecture or logical division of
responsibilities, the client is the application (also known as the
front-end), and the server is the DBMS (also known as the
back-end).
A client/server system is a distributed system in which,
◦ Some sites are client sites and others are server sites.
◦ All the data resides at the server sites.
◦ All applications execute at the client sites.
4. EXTERNAL INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS
4.1 USER INTERFACES
Front-end software: Vb.net version
Back-end software: SQL+
4.2 HARDWARE INTERFACES
Windows.
A browser that supports CGI, HTML & Javascript.
Conti…
4.3 SOFTWARE INTERFACES
Following are the software used for the flight management online application.
<<Include the software details as per your project >>
Software used Description
We have chosen Windows operating system for its best support and user-
Operating system
friendliness.
Database To save the flight records, passengers records we have chosen SQL+ database.
To implement the project we have chosen Vb.Net language for its more
VB.Net
interactive support.
4.4 COMMUNICATION INTERFACES
This project supports all types of web browsers. We are using simple electronic
5. NONFUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
5.1 PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS
The steps involved to perform the implementation of the airline
database are listed below.
A) E-R DIAGRAM: E-R Diagram constitutes a technique for
representing the logical structure of a database in a pictorial
manner. This analysis is then used to organize data as a relation,
normalizing relation, and finally obtaining a relation database.
◦ ENTITIES: These specify distinct real-world items in an application.
◦ PROPERTIES/ATTRIBUTES: These specify properties of an entity and
relationships.
◦ RELATIONSHIPS: These connect entities and represent meaningful
Conti…
Conti…
B) NORMALIZATION:
The basic objective of normalization is to reduce redundancy which means that
information is to be stored only once. Storing information several times leads to
a wastage of storage space and an increase in the total size of the data stored.
If a database is not properly designed it can give rise to modification anomalies.
Modification anomalies arise when data is added to, changed, or deleted from a
database table. Similarly, in traditional databases as well as improperly designed
relational databases, data redundancy can be a problem. These can be eliminated by
normalizing a database.
Normalization is the process of breaking down a table into smaller tables. So that each
table deals with a single theme. There are three different kinds of modifications of
anomalies and formulated the first, second, and third normal forms (3NF) is considered
sufficient for most practical purposes. It should be considered only after a thorough
analysis and complete understanding of its implications.
Conti…
5.2 SAFETY REQUIREMENTS
If there is extensive damage to a wide portion of the
database due to catastrophic failure, such as a disk
crash, the recovery method restores a past copy of the
database that was backed up to archival storage
(typically tape) and reconstructs a more current state by
reapplying or redoing the operations of committed
transactions from the backed up log, up to the time of
failure.
Conti…
5.3 SECURITY REQUIREMENTS
Security systems need database storage just like many
other applications.
However, the special requirements of the security
market mean that vendors must choose their database
partner carefully.
Conti…
5.4 SOFTWARE QUALITY ATTRIBUTES
AVAILABILITY: The flight should be available on the specified date and
specified time as many customers are doing advance reservations.
CORRECTNESS: The flight should reach start from the correct start terminal
and should reach the correct destination.
MAINTAINABILITY: The web application must support regular updates to
ensure compatibility with the latest web technologies, Bug fixes, and
security patches.
USABILITY: The flight schedules should satisfy a maximum number of
customers’ needs. The application should be accessible on multiple devices,
IEEE Standards for SRS
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/278253
IEEE Standards for SRS
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
publishes several dozen software engineering standards,
including IEEE Std 830-1998, "IEEE Recommended
Practice for Software Requirements Specifications."
Standard 830, last revised in 1998, has since been
replaced by Standard ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148:2011, with an
update in 2018.
IEEE Standards for SRS
IEEE 29148 covers the processes and information it recommends for
a software requirements specification (SRS) document, as well as its
format.
Use the standard to understand what makes for a good software
requirement, as well as how to apply these requirements throughout
the software's lifecycle.
While it can be adopted independently, IEEE 29148-2018 also
includes information on how to work with standard 15288, a
common framework of process descriptions related to systems'
lifecycles, and 12207, a common framework for software lifecycle
