Päätöstaulukotestaus

Päätöstaulukotestaus, also known as decision table testing, is a black-box testing technique used to design test cases for software applications. It is particularly effective for testing complex business logic that involves multiple conditions and corresponding actions. The core principle is to identify all possible combinations of input conditions and the resulting actions, thereby ensuring that all logical paths within the software are tested.

The process begins with identifying the conditions that affect the software's behavior. For each condition, all possible values or states are listed. Then, the actions that the software should perform based on these conditions are determined. A decision table is constructed with conditions listed in the upper part and actions in the lower part. Each column in the table represents a unique combination of condition states, known as a rule. For each rule, the corresponding actions are marked.

This structured approach helps in systematically covering all logical possibilities, reducing redundancy in test cases, and improving test coverage. It is especially useful in situations where the number of conditions is too large to be covered exhaustively by simpler methods like pairwise testing. By visualizing the relationships between conditions and actions, testers can identify missing rules, inconsistent logic, or ambiguous specifications. The resulting test cases derived from the decision table are then executed to verify the software's functionality.