happy path

English

Noun

happy path (plural happy paths)

1. (software engineering) A default scenario in which no exceptional or error conditions arise.

   Synonym: happy day scenario

   • 2000, Paul R. Reed, Developing Applications with Visual Basic and UML, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 68:

     The use case template is initially used to define the primary pathway, called the happy path, or, more formally, the Basic Course of Events (BCOE). The happy path, or as one of my seminar attendees called it, the “sunny-day path,” is the most commonly occurring pathway through the use case. It is usually one that depicts the perfect world, in which nothing goes wrong.

   • 2014, Peter J. Jones, Effective Ruby: 48 Specific Ways to Write Better Ruby, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 158:

     A common mistake made in all forms of testing is only performing happy path testing. This is especially common if you're writing tests for code you recently authored. Happy path testing is when you carefully establish all of the preconditions for the code you're testing and then only provide valid inputs to it.

Further reading

• happy path on Wikipedia.Wikipedia