Mutation testing

How it is used

Used to assess test effectiveness. Some changes are equivalent to the original and cannot be detected through behavior.

Example sentences

1. The mutation testing run showed that no test noticed when the permission condition was reversed.

   The suite did not detect the changed permission behavior; the gap may be in which cases it runs or in what its assertions check.

2. We inspected a surviving change from mutation testing and found it preserved the behavior.

   An equivalent change can survive without revealing a missing test.

Common collocations

• mutation testing score
• run mutation testing

Related terms

• test coverageA measure, often a percentage, of how much of the code is run by automated tests. It shows which parts are tested and which are not.
• assertionA line in a test that checks whether a result matches the expected value. If the check is false, the test fails.

More terms: Testing

• unit test
• test case
• edge case
• QA
• regression
• integration test
• mock
• end-to-end test
• flaky
• test suite
• manual testing
• automated testing