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Software Engineering vocabulary · Testing

Test oracle

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In software engineering, test oracle means: A source or mechanism used to decide whether the observed result of a test is correct.

In Turkish: test doğruluk kaynağı

How it is used

Used in test design. It may be a specification, known result or independent implementation, and can itself be mistaken.

Example sentences

  1. The published format rules served as the test oracle for the serializer.

    The expected output is judged against rules outside the implementation under test.

  2. Our old implementation was a poor test oracle because it shared the rounding bug.

    Agreement between two faulty implementations can incorrectly make a test pass.

Common collocations

  • reliable test oracle
  • test oracle problem
  • assertionA line in a test that checks whether a result matches the expected value. If the check is false, the test fails.
  • test caseOne specific situation you check, with set inputs, steps and an expected result, for example 'logging in with a wrong password shows an error'.

More terms: Testing

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