Monkey Testing

In Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the testing phase plays a crucial role in order to help test engineers to establish the quality, performance, consistency, efficiency, and security of the product, together before and after its release.

As we know that the testing process is the best way to identify the bugs and defects in the particular software and control them immediately, they are detected by the team of test engineers.

In this tutorial, we are going to understand the following topic of the particular type of software testing, namely Monkey testing.

• Introduction to Monkey Testing
• The attribute of Monkey Testing
• Usage of Monkey Testing
• Types of Monkey Testing
• Smart Monkey Testing vs Dumb Monkey Testing
• Monkey testing vs Adhoc testing
• Advantages of monkey testing
• Disadvantages of monkey testing

Introduction to Monkey Testing

One of the unique types of software testing is Monkey Testing. It was firstly introduced in the book The Art of Software Testing which is written by Glenford J. Myers in 1979.

It is a software testing technique where the user checks the application by giving random inputs; that's why it is also known as Random testing.

If we don't have enough time to write and perform the tests, we will implement the monkey testing.

It is also known as stochastic testing, and best suited for desktop, web, as well as mobile applications. It is a time and effort-saving process if we are using random testing or monkey testing inputs.

Monkey testing is usually executed as random, automated unit tests, and provides us the benefits of efficiently assessing software reliability from test results.

The monkey testing is primarily implemented automatically where the user inserts any random invalid input and tests its performance.

If we are performing load and stress testing, Monkey testing works very well, or we can it is a very good approach.

The data created or developed from random testing can be additionally used to approximate product consistency. On the other hand, various testing approaches cannot be used in this way to approximate the software consistency.

It is trendy among test engineers as they used this testing to test applications by providing random inputs and checking their behavior.

To detect the bugs and errors in the software application by using tentative performances is the primary intent of executing the monkey testing.

Features of Monkey Testing

Subsequently, Monkey Testing includes testing the software or application by giving some random data and detecting whether the system fails or not.

The key intent of executing the monkey testing is to identify the defects and errors in the software and make sure that the system does not crash once the entire development on the software product is done.

Some of the significant features of monkey testing or random testing are as follows:

• While performing the monkey testing, there is no specification.
• It is an instinctive test that is performed without any precise test in mind.
• Monkey testing is implemented when the defects are not detected in regular intervals.
• The monkey testing is used to list the system's dependability and performance.
• The time and energy devoted in monkey testing are comparatively less than actual test efforts.
• The implementation of monkey testing makes sure the reliability and efficiency of the system.

Usage of Monkey Testing

• Monkey testing can be used for database testing by beginning a transaction and inserting some random data.
• It can also be tested with the help of hardware or, more preferably, software to imitate the activities of a monkeys who are inserting the random data.
• To test the application for OWASP issues, we can use the pre-compiled and random data.

Types of Monkey Testing

According to its way of execution, Monkey Testing is divided into various types. To get a quick idea of it we can see in the below images:

• Dumb Monkey Testing
• Smart Monkey Testing
• Brilliant Monkey Testing

Now, let us see them one by one for our better understanding:

Dumb Monkey Testing

The first type of monkey testing is Dumb Monkey testing. It is the easiest and direct type of monkey testing that does not know their or system's abilities or the application's flow.

In this testing, we can identify fewer bugs than the smart monkeys but can naively discover significant bugs that are hard to find.

In this, the test Manager or lead appoints a test engineer who does not have the knowledge of particular module of an application in order test the product.

Even those test engineers do not have any idea whether the given inputs are valid or invalid. That is why dumb monkey testing is also known as Ignorant monkeys.

In other words, we can say that the dumb monkey does not aware of the work flow or data being sustained to the application or the system.

The test engineer is asked to test the application automatically and enter random data where the test engineer feels suitable.

The following features can acknowledge a dumb monkey:

• The test engineer's behaviour may be like a user who does not have a technical knowledgebut is trying to use the application.
• The test engineer can test the application according to their understanding and enter data that is invalid.
• When the test engineer does not have any idea about the application.
• To see if it performs as expected we can note down the application's behaviour.
• The tester doesn't know that the inputs whether its valid or invalid.
• When the tester doesn't have much knowledge about the user interface and functionality.

Smart Monkey Testing

The next type of monkey testing is Smart Monkey testing, wherein the test engineer is entirely attentive of the system or the application.

Additionally, the testing team knows the functionality of the exact product and consequently gives inputs, which are suitable and valid that helps to execute tests on the product.

Furthermore, the smart monkey tests are aware of where the pages of the application will redirect to.

In smart monkey testing, the test engineer is focused on surpassing the application, and if they identify an error, they are smart enough to report a bug. Also, smart testing is an excellent choice to perform load testing and stress testing.

In other words, we can say that the test engineer has a piece of specific knowledge about the system, its objective, and functionality, and the test engineer navigates through the system and provides valid inputs in order to execute the testing.

Brilliant Monkey Testing

The last and third type of monkey testing is brilliant monkey testing. In this type of monkey testing, the test engineer has a good knowledge of the system.

This type of testing can also identify some bugs, which might be found in the software in the future.

Furthermore, the test engineer knows about the pattern of using the product, and henceforth, they can perform testing from the user's viewpoint.

In other words, we can say that brilliant monkey testing is one step ahead of smart monkey testing.

In this, the test engineer or a team of test engineers is assigned for the task, as they have complete knowledge about the particular software domain and its features.

Difference between Smart Monkey Testing and Dumb Monkey Testing

Let us see some significant comparisons between Smart Monkey Testing and Dumb Monkey Testing in the below table.

Is Monkey Testing being similar as Gorilla Testing and Fuzz Testing?

• As we know, the gorilla testing is pre-planned whereas the monkey testing is very much Adhoc in nature, and as compared to gorilla testing, we must be muddled many times.
• If we compared fuzz testing with both gorilla testing and monkey testing are very much different to each other.
• The concern about fuzz testing with the randomly selected data input, while monkey testing deals with the random actions to execute the testing.
• Hence, we can conclude that Monkey testing is different from other types of testing procedures, which serve different purposes. We can select the appropriate type of testing as per our requirement, whether it is monkey testing, gorilla testing, and fuzz testing.

Note: Some people find monkey and Adhoc testing as a similar type of testing technique, which is incorrect because ad-hoc testing is performed without any planning or documentation work.

To clarify the above statement, we can the difference between monkey and Adhoc testing.

Monkey Testing vs Adhoc Testing

Let see some significant difference between monkey testing and Adhoc testing in the below table:

Benefits and Drawbacks of Monkey Testing

It is a software testing procedure that analysis the test scenarios, which are random and Adhoc. Despite giving various benefits to the end-users and test engineers, monkey testing has numerous drawbacks, which can suppress its positive abilities.

Hence, there are some of the essential advantages along with the disadvantages of monkey testing are as discussed below:

Advantages of Monkey Testing

Following are some of the significant benefits of monkey testing:

• There is no need for a skilled testing engineer in order to perform the monkey testing.
• Monkey testing is very cost-effective.
• Individual can quickly classify bugs with the help of this testing, which may significantly impact the software's efficiency and performance.
• To test the reliability of the software, it is an excellent approach.
• The monkey testing technique is easy to set up and implement.
• New bugs can be identified during the monkey tests; they would not have been discovered throughout the traditional testing.
• It is the best approach in order to execute the stress testing and load testing in an Adhoc manner.

Disadvantages of Monkey Testing

Following are the drawbacks of Monkey testing:

• Evaluate the unexpected issues identified during the monkey testing makes this process very difficult and time-consuming.
• In monkey testing, the identified bugs can be out of scope or out of business needs.
• The test engineer cannot assure the accuracy of test cases as they have difficulty to define the exact test scenarios.
• The implementation of monkey testing may consume lots of time before classify a bug as it does not have any predefined tests.
• It is done randomly; that's why test case coverage can't be specific.

Overview

In this tutorial, we have learned that Monkey Testing is a type of software testing that is relatively new and popular among software test engineers and very beneficial in some testing areas.

Monkey testing is knowingly different from Gorilla testing and Adhoc Testing.

Monkey testing is divided into three types of testing is Dumb monkey testing, Smart monkey testing, and Brilliant Monkey testing.

In Monkey testing, the users entering the random inputs and then implementing the testing to check its performance and to know whether the system or application fails or not.

Furthermore, monkey testing is an automated test conducted by a team of test engineers without any detailed test in mind.

And at last, we can say that Monkey testing is the easiest way of checking the quality of software features and the performance of the software; because of this quality, monkey testing is also known as random testing.