Sanity Testing
A sanity test or sanity check is a basic test to quickly evaluate whether a claim or the result of a calculation can possibly be true. It is a simple check to see if the produced material is rational (that the material's creator was thinking rationally, applying sanity). The point of a sanity test is to rule out certain classes of obviously false results, not to catch every possible error. A rule-of-thumb may be checked to perform the test. The advantage of a sanity test, over performing a complete or rigorous test, is speed.
In arithmetic, for example, when multiplying by 9, using the divisibility rule for 9 to verify that the sum of digits of the result is divisible by 9 is a sanity test - it will not catch every multiplication error, however it's a quick and simple method to discover many possible errors.
In computer science, a sanity test is a very brief run-through of the functionality of a computer program, system, calculation, or other analysis, to assure that part of the system or methodology works roughly as expected. This is often prior to a more exhaustive round of testing.
Read more about Sanity Testing: Mathematical, Software Development
Famous quotes containing the words sanity and/or testing:
“They relieve and recommend each other, and the sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities. She punishes abstractionists, and will only forgive an induction which is rare and casual.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)