Purpose of Equivalence Partitioning in testing

As test case is the important document for testing, testers use different effective techniques for preparing the same. Equivalence Partitioning or equivalence classes is one of the effective techniques among them. It is a black box testing technique, which focusses mainly on the functionality of a software. Therefore the main aim of equivalence partitioning is to prepare an effective test case which covers the total functionality of an application. In this article, I have included a brief note on Equivalence Partitioning.

Equivalence Partitioning is a software testing technique that allows the tester to divide the input domain into different partitions of classes, i.e. divides the inputs as valid and invalid classes. It uncovers the classes of errors.

For example; Consider if the Input Domain for a Text Field in a site is 1 to 1000. So while preparing test cases there is no use for writing number of test cases for all valid input datas and other test cases for invalid datas. By applying 'Equivalence Partitioning' the testers will divide this Input Domain into 3 classes of inputs :

• Any value less than 1 ( Invalid )
• Any value within 1 to 1000 ( Valid )
• Any value greater than 1000 ( Invalid )

Any value within each class of inputs satisfies a particular test case, it is assumed that all the values within those classes will satisfy the test case.

The advantage of 'Equivalence Partitioning' is, it allows the testers to reduce the number of test cases, also it reduces the testing time of a software because of lesser number of test cases. If you have additional points, use the below comment box. Happy testing..