Early estimating the number of errors encountered during program testing

An approach to estimate the number of errors encountered during the program testing process is proposed in the paper. Considerations are based on some program reliability growth model which is constructed for assumed scheme of program testing process. In this model the program under the testing is characterized by means of so-called characteristic matrix and the program testing process is determined by means of so-called testing strategy. The formula for determining the mean value of the predicted number of errors encountered during the program testing is obtained. This formula can be used if the characteristic matrix and the testing strategy are known. Formula for estimating this value when the program characteristic matrix is not known are also proposed in the paper.