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Definition of Branch Point

By David Bolton, About.com

Definition: A Branch Point is a place in a computer program where a decision is made. It can be a simple true/false decision or a multiple branch decision.

The overall complexity of a program depends upon the number of Branch Points. If there are 10 true/false decisions then in theory there are 210 = 1024 different paths through the program. Testing should try to test all possible paths.

In practice, any non trivial application will have many thousands of Branch Points.

Glossary:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Also Known As: Conditional Branch,if statement,switch statement
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