gauravc1978

 Profile Answers by gauravc1978 

• Apr 10th, 2007

 

This can be something related to the test data we use for testing the application. Dicreet data set usually consists of values like true/false, Yes/No, 0/1 etc.

Incase of continious data the values are a bit more deccriptive like 1,2,3,...... 100

We can use these different kind of data sets as our test data depending on the requirement.

For e.g. if we are testing the selection functionality  of a checkbox or radio button we can use a discreet test data
whereas for testing of a text box accepting Employee ID we can use test data oftype continious i.e 1, 2, 3, ....... etc

sheela

• Apr 11th, 2007

 

Continous data can be measured such as weight, length or width etc.
Discrete data can be counted such as No. of errors, No. of out of balance in bank.

StevenPace

 Profile Answers by StevenPace 

• Jul 12th, 2008

 

Integers are Discrete
Real numbers  are Continous

An important implication is that a discrete number would tend to have many fewer possible values. 

In both cases, you would want to test the most extreme values, of course, but with continous data, that is much less likely to be helpful.  I think with continuous data, you should probably give more thought to the values that you choose, and  put more effort into making sure that the answer is right.

For example, if you are testing a character format control, the font size is a discrete value.  If you try the smallest and largest possible font size and they are ok, it is unlikely that there are any problems with the others.

Continous data, such as the contents of a word document, the end points, all zeros, or all ones in binary, would not be a particularly useful test case.  I think for a word document, it would be a better use of limited test resources to make sure that the word document is not corrupted, extra tests on that would be better for the product quality.