Functional testing
Testing software functionality
title: "Functional testing" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["software-testing"] description: "Testing software functionality" topic_path: "technology/software-engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_testing" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Testing software functionality ::
In software development, functional testing is a form of software testing that verifies whether a system meets its functional requirements.
Generally, functional testing is black-box, meaning the internal program structure is ignored (unlike for white-box testing).
Sometimes, functional testing is a quality assurance (QA) process.
As a form of system testing, functional testing tests slices of functionality of the whole system. Despite similar naming, functional testing is not testing the code of a single function.
The concept of incorporating testing earlier in the delivery cycle is not restricted to functional testing.
Types
Functional testing includes but is not limited to:
Sanity testing
Smoke testing
Regression testing
Usability testing
Six steps
Functional testing typically involves six steps
- The identification of functions that the software is expected to perform
- The creation of input data based on the function's specifications
- The determination of output based on the function's specifications
- The execution of the test case
- The comparison of actual and expected outputs
- To check whether the application works as per the customer need
References
References
- ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765:2017, "Systems and software engineering — Vocabulary", International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2017.
- (2010). "ISO/IEC/IEEE International Standard - Systems and software engineering". ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765:2010(E).
- Kaner, Falk, Nguyen. ''Testing Computer Software''. Wiley Computer Publishing, 1999, p. 42. {{ISBN. 0-471-35846-0.
- Prasad, Dr. K.V.K.K. (2008) ''ISTQB Certification Study Guide'', Wiley, {{ISBN. 978-81-7722-711-6, p. vi
- "Full Stack Testing".
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