Difference between control flow testing and basis path testing

Question

We are studying various testing techniques in Software Quality Assurance course and i got confused when came across "basis path testing" and "control flow testing". Both these techniques apparently look same even their steps are also almost same but i need to find some concrete difference among them. I am unable to differentiate them. Any help in this regard would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Basis Path testing just ensures the coverage of all the paths in the program but control flow testing test the conditions as well.

So for a simple example, if there is a decision node in the program as:

if( x >= 2 )

Here, in this case there would be two paths:

1. x >= 2
2. x < 2

But in control flow there would be three combinations, as following:

1. x > 2
2. x = 2
3. x < 2

It was a very basic example, I hope that helps.