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Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2002

''Note: This compilation includes only those attacks that resulted in casualties. Attacks which did not kill or wound are not included.''

January

 * 4 January: An Israeli army undercover unit kills a Hamas member in the village of Tal and arrests two others.
 * 9 January: Two Hamas militants wearing Palestinian police uniforms attack an IDF post near the Gaza Strip with grenades and assault rifles. Four Israeli soldiers and one of the attackers are killed.
 * 10 January-11: The Israeli army demolished 59 houses and damaged another 200 in Rafah refugee camp. Over six hundred Palestinians are made homeless.
 * 14 January: The IDF killed Raed al-Karmi, head of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (AMB) in Tulkarm. AMB gunmen kill an Israeli soldier near Shavei Shomron.
 * 14 January: Sgt. Elad Abu-Gani, 19, from Tiberias was killed and an officer was injured in a Palestinian ambush near Kuchin, with Fatah claiming responsibility.
 * 15 January: Avraham (Avi) Boaz, 71, an American from Ma'aleh Adumim, was kidnapped at a PA checkpoint in Beit Jala and later found dead in Beit Sahur, Bethlehem. Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility..
 * 15 January: Yoela Chen, 45, of Givat Ze'ev, was shot and killed by Palestinian militants near Givat Ze'ev's gas station; her aunt was injured. Responsibility was claimed by Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigade.
 * 17 January: 2002 Bat Mitzvah massacre: A gunman killed six and wounded 33 in a Bat Mitzvah celebration in Hadera. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. Wanted AMB member Khamis Abdallah is killed by the Israeli army in an apparent assassination in Nablus. A Palestinian is killed by shellfire on the Gaza border. Two Preventive Security Force officers are killed when an Israeli F-16 destroyed the Palestinian Authority's main police headquarters in Tulkarem.
 * 18 January: In an apparent assassination, wanted AMB member Faraj Hani Odeh Nazzal is killed in the West Bank.
 * 21 January: A 19-year-old Palestinian was killed and seven wounded in fighting with Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
 * 22 January: Sarah Hamburger, 79, and Svetlana Sandler, 56, both from Jerusalem, were killed and 40 injured by a Palestinian with an M-16 at a Jerusalem bus stop; the Fatah Al-Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility.
 * 27 January: Pinhas Tokatli, 81, was killed and over 150 were wounded in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem by a Fatah female suicide bomber armed with over 10 kilos of explosives.
 * 27 January: Pinhas Tokatli, 81, was killed and over 150 were wounded in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem by a Fatah female suicide bomber armed with over 10 kilos of explosives.

February

 * 6 February: Miri Ohana, 45, and her daughter Yael, 11, were killed in Moshav Hamra by an armed militant. St.-Sgt. Maj.(res.) Moshe Majos Meconen, 33, also died in the attack. Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility.
 * 8 February: Moranne Amit, 25, from Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi was fatally stabbed in Jerusalem by four young Palestinians.
 * 9 February: Atala Lipobsky, 78, of Ma'ale Ephraim, was shot and killed in an apparent ambush on the Trans-Samaria Highway.
 * 10 February: Lt. Keren Rothstein, 20, and Cpl. Aya Malachi, 18, were killed and four others were injured in a drive-by shooting at the IDF Southern Command base in Be'er Sheva. Hamas claimed responsibility.
 * 14 February: St.-Sgt. Ron Lavie, St.-Sgt. Moshe Peled, both 20, and St.-Sgt. Asher Zaguri, 21, were killed by a mine on the Karni-Netzarim road in the Gaza Strip.
 * 16 February: Two teenagers killed in a suicide bombing in the West Bank. Another teenage girl died from her injuries 11 days later. The PFLP claimed responsibility.
 * 18 February: An Israeli-Arab policeman is killed by a suicide bomber. Fatah (Al-Aqsa) claims responsibility. An Israeli settler woman is and two soldiers trying to assist her are killed in a combined shooting and bombing in the Gaza Strip. The gunman who killed the woman is run over and killed by an Israeli civilian who was driving nearby, who sustained gunshot wounds. Fatah (Al-Aqsa) claims responsibility.
 * 19 February: Palestinian guerillas attacked an army checkpoint at Ein 'Ariq near Ramallah killing six Israeli soldiers. The Al-Aqsa Brigade and Hamas claimed joint responsibility.
 * 20 February: In retaliation of the raid 19 February, Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships attack structures belonging to the Palestinian Authority. Israeli artillery also attacks Palestinian police checkpoints, and Israeli troops engage in firefights with Palestinians. A total of 16 Palestinians are killed.
 * 26 February: A 15-year-old Palestinian girl, wielding a knife, was shot dead at an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarm in what appeared to have been a failed attack at that checkpoint.
 * 28 February: Two Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded as Israel forces stormed the Balata refugee camp. In Jenin, six Palestinian policemen were shot dead as tanks entered the camp.

March

 * 1 March: IDF soldier Sgt. Ya'acov Avni, 20, from Kiryat Ata, was killed by Palestinian sniper fire in the Jenin refugee camp.
 * 2 March: A suicide bombing near a yeshiva in a religious Jerusalem neighborhood killed 11 people and injured more than 50. The Palestinian detonated the bomb next to a group of women waiting with their baby carriages for their husbands to leave the nearby synagogue. Fatah took responsibilities for the attack. The bullet-ridden body of a Jerusalem police detective was discovered next to his trail motorcycle, near the Mar Saba Monastery in the Judean Desert.
 * 3 March: A Palestinian sniper kills seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians at an IDF roadblock near the settlement of Ofra. Sgt. Steven Kenigsberg, 19, from Hod Hasharon, was killed and four soldiers were injured when a Palestinian gunman opened fire near the Kissufim crossing in the Gaza Strip. Both the Islamic Jihad and Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 4 March: Six Palestinians, five of them children, were killed in Ramallah when a tank shelled a pickup truck and another vehicle belonging to a suspected Hamas militant. In Jenin, six more Palestinians were killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers. In Rafah refugee camp, two Palestinian gunmen and one civilian was killed and three buildings demolished.
 * 5 March: Three people were killed in Tel Aviv when a Palestinian gunman opened fire on two adjacent restaurants. An Israeli woman was killed in shooting attack on the Bethlehem bypass "tunnel" road, south of Jerusalem, on her way to work. Her husband was injured. An 85-year-old Israeli was killed in a suicide bombing on Egged bus No. 823 as it entered the Afula central bus station.
 * 6 March: 1st Lt. Pinhas Cohen, 23, from Jerusalem, was killed near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis. Cpl.(res.) Alexander Nastarenko, 37, from Netanya, was killed when Palestinian gunmen crossed the border fence and ambushed an army jeep on the patrol road near Kibbutz Nir Oz.
 * 7 March: Five Israeli teenagers were killed and 23 injured when a Hamas gunmen infiltrated the Gush Katif settlement of Atzmona, opening fire and throwing hand grenades at the school and nearby houses. One of those killed sustained third degree burns over 90% of his body after a grenade was thrown through the window of his dorm room. He died of his wounds in the hospital five hours after the attack.
 * 8 March: St.-Sgt. Edward Korol, 20, of Ashdod, was killed by a Palestinian sniper in Tulkarem.
 * 9 March: A 9-month-old baby and a man were killed when two Palestinians opened fire and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians in Netanya, close to the city's boardwalk and hotels. A Palestinian suicide bombing at Cafe Moment in central Jerusalem killed 11 people killed and injured 54 others.
 * 10 March: St.-Sgt. Kobi Eichelboim, 21, from Givatayim, died from wounds sustained when a Palestinian gunman, disguised as a worker, opened fire at the entrance to Netzarim in the Gaza Strip earlier that day.
 * 12 March: One Israeli was killed and another wounded in a shooting attack at the Kiryat Sefer checkpoint, east of Modi'in Illit. Six people (three men and three women, including a teenager) killed when two gunmen opened fire from an ambush on Israeli vehicles traveling between Shlomi and Kibbutz Metzuba near the northern border with Lebanon.
 * 13 March: Lt. Gil Badihi, 21, from Nataf, died from injuries sustained when he was shot in the head by a Palestinian gunman in Ramallah. He was inside his tank, evacuating infantry personnel at the time.
 * 14 March: An Israeli tank is destroyed by a mine near Netzarim, killing three soldiers and wounding two. DFLP and Fatah claimed responsibility.
 * 17 March: An 18-year-old girl was killed and 16 people were injured when a gunman opened fire on passersby in the center of Kfar Saba.
 * 19 March: 1st Lt. Tal Zemach, 20, of Kibbutz Hulda, was killed and three soldiers were injured when Palestinian militants opened fire on them in the Jordan Valley. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 20 March: Seven Israelis killed in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus No. 823 traveling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth, near Afula.
 * 21 March: Three people killed and 86 injured when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb, packed with metal spikes and nails, in the center of a crowd of shoppers on King George Street in central Jerusalem.
 * 24 March: Avi Sabag, 24, from Otniel, was killed in a Palestinian shooting attack south of Hebron. Esther Kleiman, 23, from Neve Tzuf, was killed in a shooting attack while traveling to work in a reinforced Egged bus northwest of Ramallah.
 * 26 March: Major Cengiz Soytunc of Turkey and Catherine Berruex of Switzerland, members of the TIPH observer force, were killed in an ambush shooting by a Palestinian gunman near Halhul in Hebron.
 * 27 March: The Passover Massacre: 30 Israelis were killed and 140 wounded when a suicide bomber exploded in the crowded dining room of the Park Hotel in Netanya.
 * 28 March: Rachel and David Gavish, both 50, their son Avraham Gavish, 20, and Rachel's father Yitzhak Kanner, 83, were killed when a militant infiltrated Elon Moreh in Samaria, entered their home, and opened fire. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 29 March: Tuvia Wisner, 79, of Petah Tikva and Michael Orlansky, 70, of Tel-Aviv were killed when a Palestinian militant infiltrated the Neztarim settlement in the Gaza Strip. Lt. Boaz Pomerantz, 22, of Kiryat Shmona and St.-Sgt. Roman Shliapstein, 22, of Ma'ale Efraim were killed during IDF action in Ramallah, part of Operation Defensive Shield. Rachel Levy, 17, and Haim Smadar, 55, both of Jerusalem, were killed and 28 others injured, two seriously, in a suicide bombing by a female bomber in the Kiryat Yovel supermarket in Jerusalem. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.
 * 30 March: Border Policeman Sgt.-Maj. Constantine Danilov, 23, of Or Akiva was killed in Baka al-Garbiyeh during an exchange of fire with two Palestinians attempting to cross into Israel for a suicide attack. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility.
 * 31 March: A suicide bombing in Haifa at the Matza restaurant killed 16 and injured over 40. Hamas claimed responsibility. Victims included Suheil Adawi, Dov Chernobroda, Shimon Koren and his sons Ran and Gal, Moshe Levin, Danielle Menchel, Orly Ofir, Aviel Ron and his children Ofer and Anat, Ya'akov Shani, Adi Shiran, and Daniel Carlos Wegman. Carlos Yerushalmi and Shimon Shiran later died from their injuries.

April

 * 1 April: A 19-year-old police volunteer was killed in Jerusalem, when a Palestinian suicide bomber driving toward the city center blew himself up after being stopped at a roadblock. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. Sgt.-Maj. Ofir Roth, 22, of Gan Yoshiya, an IDF reserve soldier, was killed at a roadblock near Jerusalem's Har Homa neighborhood by Palestinian sniper fire from Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem.
 * 3 April: IDF reservist Maj. Moshe Gerstner, 29, of Rishon Lezion was killed in Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield.
 * 4 April: Rachel Charhi, 36, of Bat-Yam, succumbed to wounds from a suicide bombing at a cafe in Tel-Aviv on 30 March. About 30 others were injured. The Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility. Border Police Supt. Patrick Pereg, 30, of Rosh Ha'ayin, was killed while attempting to arrest a member of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Sgt.-Maj.(res.) Einan Sharabi, 32, of Rehovot; Lt. Nissim Ben-David, 22, of Ashdod; and St.-Sgt. Gad Ezra, 23, of Bat-Yam were killed during IDF action in Jenin (Operation Defensive Shield).
 * 5 April: Sgt. Marom Moshe Fisher, 19, of Moshav Avigdor; Sgt. Ro'i Tal, 21, of Ma'alot; and Sgt. Oded Kornfein, 20, of Kibbutz Ha'on were killed in fire exchanges in Jenin (Operation Defensive Shield).
 * 6 April: St.-Sgt. Nisan Avraham, 26, of Lod was killed and five other soldiers were lightly injured in a shootout at the entrance to Rafiah Yam in the Gaza Strip. The attackers, members of the Islamic Jihad, were killed.
 * 8 April: St.-Sgt. Matanya Robinson, 21, of Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, and Sgt. Shmuel Weiss, 19, of Kiryat Arba were killed in an ambush in the Jenin refugee camp (Operation Defensive Shield).
 * 9 April: Thirteen IDF soldiers were killed and 7 injured in Jenin by Palestinian militants during an ambush. Explosives and gunfire from rooftops were used against them. Maj. Assaf Assoulin, 30, of Tel Aviv was killed in an exchange of fire in Nablus. St.-Sgt. Gedaliah Mellick, 21, of Jerusalem was killed and 12 soldiers were wounded in Jenin when an explosive charge was thrown at their patrol.
 * 10 April: Eight people killed and 22 wounded in a suicide bombing on Egged bus #960, en route from Haifa to Jerusalem, which exploded near Kibbutz Yagur, east of Haifa.
 * 12 April: Seven people killed by a woman suicide bomber who detonated a powerful charge at a bus stop on Jaffa road next to the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market. Another 104 people were injured in the blast, among them nine Arabs.  The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 27 April: Four people, including a 5-year-old girl, killed when Palestinian gunmen dressed in IDF uniforms and combat gear cut through the settlement's defensive perimeter fence and entered Adora, west of Hebron. The gunmen entered several homes, firing on people in their bedrooms.
 * 29 April: Israeli forces invaded the West Bank town of Hebron and killed nine Palestinians. In the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, a Palestinian gunmen was shot dead by Israeli snipers.
 * From 3 April to 12 April: 52 Palestinians, 5-22 of them civilians (sources vary) and 23 Israeli soldiers were confirmed killed in Jenin.

May

 * 7 May: 15 people killed and 60 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated a powerful charge in a game club located on the 3rd floor of a building in Rishon LeZion, causing part of the building to collapse. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 12 May: An Israeli settler of Pe'at Sadeh in the southern Gaza Strip was shot and killed by a Palestinian laborer, when he came to pick him up at a checkpoint.
 * 19 May: Three Israelis killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded section of Netanya's open-air market.
 * 21 May: One Israeli injured when a bomb explodes Kehilat Katzuvitch Street in northern Tel Aviv.
 * 22 May: Two people (one of them a teenager) are killed in suicide bombing in the heart of Rishon LeZion.
 * 27 May: A woman and her infant granddaughter, aged 14 months, of Petah Tikva were killed when a suicide bomber detonated himself near an ice cream parlor outside a shopping mall.
 * 28 May: Two Israelis were killed when shots were fired at the car in which they were traveling south on the Ramallah bypass road. Three yeshiva high school students killed in Itamar, southeast of Nablus, when a Palestinian gunman infiltrated the community and opened fire on the teenagers.
 * 29 May: Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops; one in the southern Gaza Strip in Khan Yunis and one gunman belonging to Islamic Jihad in Jenin on the West Bank. Additionally, four homes were blown up and 20 damaged in Rafah.

June

 * 5 June: 17 people killed and 43 wounded when a car packed with a large quantity of explosives struck Egged bus No. 830 traveling from Tel-Aviv to Tiberias at the Megiddo junction near Afula. The car exploded near the gasoline tank of the bus, causing it to burst into flames. Most of the casualties were soldiers who were on their way to their bases. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 6 June: 18-year-old Israeli student died of gunshot wounds to the chest sustained in a shooting attack near Ofra, north of Ramallah, when Palestinian gunmen opened fire in an ambush.
 * 8 June: Three Israelis, including a ninth month pregnant woman, were shot dead when gunmen infiltrated the community of Carmei Tzur north of Hebron.
 * 8 June: A militant infiltrated into the Jordan Valley community of Mechora. A woman was murdered and her husband, 30, wounded.
 * 11 June: A 14-year-old girl was killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber set off a relatively small pipe bomb at a shwarma restaurant in Herzliya.
 * 18 June: 19 people killed and 74 wounded in a suicide bombing at the Patt junction in Egged bus no. 32A traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem. The bomber boarded the bus at the stop in Beit Safafa, an Arab neighborhood opposite Gilo, and almost immediately detonated the large bomb which he carried in a bag stuffed with ball bearings. The blast destroyed the front half of the bus, packed with people on their way to work and schoolchildren.
 * 19 June: Seven people, including a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem.
 * 20 June: Five people, including a mother and three of her sons, were murdered when a gunman entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire.

July

 * 16 July: Nine people (two men, six women, and an infant child) were killed in an attack on Dan bus no. 189 traveling from Bnei Brak to Emmanuel in the northern West Bank. Two 20-kilo bombs were set off about 200 meters from the town's entrance, damaging the bus's front tires and forcing it off the road. The explosion damaged the bus doors, trapping the passengers inside. The militants then started to shoot at the bus, firing through the unprotected roof and throwing grenades through the narrow upper windows, which are not armored.
 * 17 July: Five people were killed and about 40 injured in a double suicide bombing on Neve Sha'anan Street near the old central bus station in Tel Aviv. The bombs, which were strapped to the waists of the bombers, contained nails and metal shards.
 * 31 July: Nine people, some of them American students, were killed and over 80 wounded when a bomb exploded in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria on the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus in Jerusalem.

August

 * 1 August: A 27-year-old Israeli man was found shot in the head at point-blank range and bound, west of Tulkarem, near the Green Line.
 * 4 August: Nine people were killed in the suicide bombing of Egged bus No. 361 traveling from Haifa to Safed at the Meron junction in northern Israel. The blast blew off the roof of the bus, which then burst into flames, killing or wounding nearly everyone inside. A 34-year-old Israeli and a 52-year-old Palestinian were killed when a Palestinian gunman opened fire with a pistol near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.
 * 5 August: A young Israeli couple were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car as they were traveling on the Ramallah-Nablus road near Eli in the northern West Bank. One of their children was wounded in the attack.
 * 10 August: A 31-year-old woman was killed and her husband seriously wounded when a Palestinian gunman infiltrated Moshav Mechora in the Jordan Valley, and opened fire outside their home.

September

 * 5 September: A Merkava heavy tank was destroyed by a mine near the Kissufim Crossing, killing 1 soldiers and wounding 3. Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility.
 * 18 September: The charred body of a 67-year-old Israeli construction contractor was found near al-Azzariya, a Palestinian village near the settlement of Ma'ale Adummim, east of Jerusalem. A 36-year-old Israeli was killed when gunmen opened fire on his car near Mevo Dotan, north of Jenin in the West Bank. An Israeli policeman was killed and three people were wounded in a suicide bombing at a bus stop at the Umm al Fahm junction.
 * 19 September: Five people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in Dan bus No. 4 on Allenby Street, opposite the Great Synagogue in Tel-Aviv. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 23 September: A 48-year-old man was killed and three of his children wounded, one seriously, in a shooting attack near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron during the Sukkot festival.

October

 * 8 October: A 51-year-old Israeli was critically wounded in an ambush shooting south of Hebron. He died of his wounds the following day. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
 * 9 October: Palestinian gunmen shot and wounded four Israelis traveling in a car near Hebron.
 * 10 October: A 71-year-old woman was killed and about 30 people were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up while trying to board Dan bus No. 87 across from Bar-Ilan University on the Geha highway (Route 4) in central Israel.
 * 21 October: 14 persons were killed when a bus was blown up in a suicide attack by a bomber driving an explosives-laden jeep near the Karkur junction.
 * 27 October: Three IDF soldiers killed in a suicide bombing at the Sonol gas station at the entrance to Ariel in the northern West Bank while trying to prevent the bomber from detonating the bomb. About 20 people were wounded in the bombing.
 * 29 October: A woman and two 14-year-old girls were shot dead by a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated the settlement of Hermesh, north of Tulkarm, in the northern West Bank. A soldier and a resident were wounded in the assault.

November

 * 4 November: Two persons killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself at a Kfar Saba shopping mall.
 * 6 November: Two Israeli farmers were shot to dead by a Palestinian gunman posing as a worker near Pe'at Sadeh in the southern Gaza Strip.
 * 10 November: Five people, including a mother and her 4- and 5-year-old children, were shot and killed by a gunman who infiltrated Kibbutz Metzer, located east of Hadera near the Green Line. The gunman shot the mother and children as they hugged one another.
 * 15 November: 12 people were killed, nine soldiers and three paramilitary security guards from the Kiryat Arba emergency response team, and 15 wounded in Hebron when Palestinian militants drew security forces into an ambush.
 * 21 November: 11 people killed and about 50 wounded in a suicide bombing on a No. 20 Egged bus in the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood of Jerusalem. Most of the victims were high-school students on their way to school.
 * Iain Hook shot and killed by an Israeli sniper. He was a British worker for UNRWA in Jenin.
 * 28 November: 2002 Beit She'an attack: Six Israelis and two militants were killed, and 34 Israelis were wounded after the two perpetrators opened fire and threw grenades at the Likud polling station in Bet She'an, where party members were casting their votes in the Likud primary. Kenyan hotel bombing: Three Israelis, including two brothers, and 10 Kenyans killed when a car bomb exploded in the lobby of the Israeli-owned beachfront Paradise Hotel, frequented almost exclusively by Israeli tourists near Mombasa in Kenya. 21 Israelis and 60 Kenyans were wounded in the attack.

December

 * 20 December: A 40-year-old rabbi was shot and killed on the Kissufim corridor road (in the Gaza Strip) while driving with his wife and six children to attend a pre-wedding Sabbath celebration in Afula. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

 * 26 December: In Nablus, Israeli troops killed two Palestinians. A Palestinian who had opened fire against a patrol, and a 15-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed in the crossfire. In Tulkarem, one man was killed when he tried to escape arrest. According to Palestinian and Israeli sources he was a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. In Ramallah three Palestinians, one of them a Hamas member, were killed by Israeli troops in separate incidents. In the West Bank village of Qabatiya, Hamza Abu Roub, a top Islamic Jihad leader, was killed while resisting arrest. Four IDF soldiers were wounded in the incident. Thereafter Abu Roub's house was blown up. In the Gaza Strip Israeli troops killed two Hamas members which were attempting an attack on the Netzarim settlement.
 * 27 December: Two IDF soldiers and two yeshiva students were killed in an attack on the Hesder yeshiva (military religious academy) of Otniel.


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Classless Inter-Domain Routing

Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR ) is a method for allocating IP addresses for IP routing. The Internet Engineering Task Force introduced CIDR in 1993 to replace the previous classful network addressing architecture on the Internet. Its goal was to slow the growth of routing tables on routers across the Internet, and to help slow the rapid exhaustion of IPv4 addresses.

IP addresses are described as consisting of two groups of bits in the address: the most significant bits are the network prefix, which identifies a whole network or subnet, and the least significant set forms the host identifier, which specifies a particular interface of a host on that network. This division is used as the basis of traffic routing between IP networks and for address allocation policies.

Whereas classful network design for IPv4 sized the network prefix as one or more 8-bit groups, resulting in the blocks of Class A, B, or C addresses, under CIDR address space is allocated to Internet service providers and end users on any address-bit boundary. In IPv6, however, the interface identifier has a fixed size of 64 bits by convention, and smaller subnets are never allocated to end users.

CIDR is based on variable-length subnet masking (VLSM), in which network prefixes have variable length (as opposed to the fixed-length prefixing of the previous classful network design). The main benefit of this is that it grants finer control of the sizes of subnets allocated to organizations, hence slowing the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses from allocating larger subnets than needed. CIDR gave rise to a new way of writing IP addresses known as CIDR notation, in which an IP address is followed by a suffix indicating the number of bits of the prefix. Some examples of CIDR notation are the addresses for IPv4 and  for IPv6. Blocks of addresses having contiguous prefixes may be aggregated as supernets, reducing the number of entries in the global routing table.

Background
Each IP address consists of a network prefix followed by a host identifier. In the classful network architecture of IPv4, the three most significant bits of the 32-bit IP address defined the size of the network prefix for unicast networking, and determined the network class A, B, or C.

The advantage of this system is that the network prefix could be determined for any IP address without any further information. The disadvantage is that networks were usually too big or too small for most organizations to use, because only three sizes were available. The smallest allocation and routing block contained 28 = 256 addresses, larger than necessary for personal or department networks, but too small for most enterprises. The next larger block contained 216 = 65 536 addresses, too large to be used efficiently even by large organizations. But for network users who needed more than 65 536 addresses, the only other size (224) provided far too many, more than 16 million. This led to inefficiencies in address use as well as inefficiencies in routing, because it required a large number of allocated class-C networks with individual route announcements, being geographically dispersed with little opportunity for route aggregation.

Within a decade after the invention of the Domain Name System (DNS), the classful network method was found not scalable. This led to the development of subnetting and CIDR. The formerly meaningful class distinctions based on the most-significant address bits were abandoned and the new system was described as classless, in contrast to the old system, which became known as classful. Routing protocols were revised to carry not just IP addresses, but also their subnet masks. Implementing CIDR required every host and router on the Internet to be reprogrammed in small ways—no small feat at a time when the Internet was entering a period of rapid growth. In 1993, the Internet Engineering Task Force published a new set of standards, and, to define this new principle for allocating IP address blocks and routing IPv4 packets. An updated version,, was published in 2006.

After a period of experimentation with various alternatives, Classless Inter-Domain Routing was based on variable-length subnet masking (VLSM), which allows each network to be divided into subnetworks of various power-of-two sizes, so that each subnetwork can be sized appropriately for local needs. Variable-length subnet masks were mentioned as one alternative in. Techniques for grouping addresses for common operations were based on the concept of cluster addressing, first proposed by Carl-Herbert Rokitansky.

CIDR notation
CIDR notation is a compact representation of an IP address and its associated network mask. The notation was invented by Phil Karn in the 1980s. CIDR notation specifies an IP address, a slash ('/') character, and a decimal number. The decimal number is the count of consecutive leading 1-bits (from left to right) in the network mask. Each 1-bit denotes a bit of the address range which must remain identical to the given IP address. The IP address in CIDR notation is always represented according to the standards for IPv4 or IPv6.

The address may denote a specific interface address (including a host identifier, such as ), or it may be the beginning address of an entire network (using a host identifier of 0, as in or its equivalent ). CIDR notation can even be used with no IP address at all, e.g. when referring to a as a generic description of an IPv4 network that has a 24-bit prefix and 8-bit host numbers.

For example:
 * represents the IPv4 address and its associated network prefix, or equivalently, its subnet mask , which has 24 leading 1-bits.
 * the IPv4 block represents the 1024 IPv4 addresses from  to.
 * the IPv6 block represents the block of IPv6 addresses from  to.
 * represents the IPv6 loopback address. Its prefix length is 128 which is the number of bits in the address.

In IPv4, CIDR notation came into wide use only after the implementation of the method, which was documented using dotted-decimal subnet mask specification after the slash, for example,. Describing the network prefix width as a single number was easier for network administrators to conceptualize and to calculate. It became gradually incorporated into later standards documents and into network configuration interfaces.

The number of addresses of a network may be calculated as 2address length − prefix length, where address length is 128 for IPv6 and 32 for IPv4. For example, in IPv4, the prefix length gives: 232−29 = 23 = 8 addresses.

Subnet masks
A subnet mask is a bitmask that encodes the prefix length associated with an IPv4 address or network in quad-dotted notation: 32 bits, starting with a number of 1-bits equal to the prefix length, ending with 0-bits, and encoded in four-part dotted-decimal format:. A subnet mask encodes the same information as a prefix length but predates the advent of CIDR. In CIDR notation, the prefix bits are always contiguous. Subnet masks were allowed by to specify non-contiguous bits until   stated that the mask must be left contiguous. Given this constraint, a subnet mask and CIDR notation serve exactly the same function.

CIDR blocks
CIDR is principally a bitwise, prefix-based standard for the representation of IP addresses and their routing properties. It facilitates routing by allowing blocks of addresses to be grouped into single routing table entries. These groups, commonly called CIDR blocks, share an initial sequence of bits in the binary representation of their IP addresses. IPv4 CIDR blocks are identified using a syntax similar to that of IPv4 addresses: a dotted-decimal address, followed by a slash, then a number from 0 to 32, i.e.,. The dotted decimal portion is the IPv4 address. The number following the slash is the prefix length, the number of shared initial bits, counting from the most-significant bit of the address. When emphasizing only the size of a network, the address portion of the notation is usually omitted. Thus, a /20 block is a CIDR block with an unspecified 20-bit prefix.

An IP address is part of a CIDR block and is said to match the CIDR prefix if the initial n bits of the address and the CIDR prefix are the same. An IPv4 address is 32 bits so an n-bit CIDR prefix leaves 32 − n bits unmatched, meaning that 232−n IPv4 addresses match a given n-bit CIDR prefix. Shorter CIDR prefixes match more addresses, while longer prefixes match fewer. In the case of overlaid CIDR blocks, an address can match multiple CIDR prefixes of different lengths.

CIDR is also used for IPv6 addresses and the syntax semantic is identical. The prefix length can range from 0 to 128, due to the larger number of bits in the address. However, by convention, a subnet on broadcast MAC layer networks always has 64-bit host identifiers. Larger prefixes (/127) are only used on some point-to-point links between routers, for security and policy reasons.

Assignment of CIDR blocks
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) issues to regional Internet registries (RIRs) large, short-prefix CIDR blocks. However, a (with over sixteen million addresses) is the largest block IANA will allocate. For example, is administered by RIPE NCC, the European RIR. The RIRs, each responsible for a single, large, geographic area, such as Europe or North America, subdivide these blocks and allocate subnets to local Internet registries (LIRs). Similar subdividing may be repeated several times at lower levels of delegation. End-user networks receive subnets sized according to their projected short-term need. Networks served by a single ISP are encouraged by IETF recommendations to obtain IP address space directly from their ISP. Networks served by multiple ISPs, on the other hand, may obtain provider-independent address space directly from the appropriate RIR.

For example, in the late 1990s, the IP address (since reassigned) was used by www.freesoft.org. An analysis of this address identified three CIDR prefixes. , a large CIDR block containing over 2 million addresses, had been assigned by ARIN (the North American RIR) to MCI. Automation Research Systems (ARS), a Virginia VAR, leased an Internet connection from MCI and was assigned the block, capable of addressing just over 1000 devices. ARS used a block for its publicly accessible servers, of which  was one. All of these CIDR prefixes would be used, at different locations in the network. Outside MCI's network, the prefix would be used to direct to MCI traffic bound not only for, but also for any of the roughly two million IP addresses with the same initial 11 bits. Within MCI's network, would become visible, directing traffic to the leased line serving ARS. Only within the ARS corporate network would the prefix have been used.

IPv4 CIDR blocks
In common usage, the first address in a subnet, all binary zero in the host identifier, is reserved for referring to the network itself, while the last address, all binary one in the host identifier, is used as a broadcast address for the network; this reduces the number of addresses available for hosts by 2. As a result, a network, with one binary digit in the host identifier, would be unusable, as such a subnet would provide no available host addresses after this reduction. creates an exception to the "host all ones" and "host all zeros" rules to make networks usable for point-to-point links. addresses (single-host network) must be accessed by explicit routing rules, as there is no room in such a network for a gateway.

In routed subnets larger than or, the number of available host addresses is usually reduced by two, namely the largest address, which is reserved as the broadcast address, and the smallest address, which identifies the network itself.

IPv6 CIDR blocks
The large address size of IPv6 permitted worldwide route summarization and guaranteed sufficient address pools at each site. The standard subnet size for IPv6 networks is a block, which is required for the operation of stateless address autoconfiguration. At first, the IETF recommended in as a best practice that all end sites receive a  address allocation, but criticism and reevaluation of actual needs and practices has led to more flexible allocation recommendations in  suggesting a significantly smaller allocation for some sites, such as a  block for residential networks.

This IPv6 subnetting reference lists the sizes for IPv6 subnetworks. Different types of network links may require different subnet sizes. The subnet mask separates the bits of the network identifier prefix from the bits of the interface identifier. Selecting a smaller prefix size results in fewer number of networks covered, but with more addresses within each network.

2001:0db8:0123:4567:89ab:cdef:1234:5678 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||128    Single end-points and loopback |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||127  Point-to-point links (inter-router) |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| ||124 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |120 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| 116 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||112 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| ||108 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |104 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| 100 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |||96 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| ||92 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| |88 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||| 84 |||| |||| |||| |||| |||80 |||| |||| |||| |||| ||76 |||| |||| |||| |||| |72 |||| |||| |||| |||| 68 |||| |||| |||| |||64  Single LAN; default prefix size for SLAAC |||| |||| |||| ||60  Some (very limited) 6rd deployments (/60 = 16 /64 blocks) |||| |||| |||| |56  Minimal end sites assignment; e.g. home network (/56 = 256 /64 blocks) |||| |||| |||| 52  /52 block = 4096 /64 blocks |||| |||| |||48  Typical assignment for larger sites (/48 = 65536 /64 blocks) |||| |||| ||44 |||| |||| |40 |||| |||| 36  possible future local Internet registry (LIR) extra-small allocations |||| |||32  LIR minimum allocations |||| ||28  LIR medium allocations |||| |24  LIR large allocations |||| 20  LIR extra large allocations |||16 ||12  Regional Internet registry (RIR) allocations from IANA |8 4

Numerical interpretation
Topologically, the set of subnets described by CIDR represent a cover of the corresponding address space. The interval described by the notation $$X/n$$ numerically corresponds to addresses of the form (for IPv4) $$[x*2^{32-n}, x*2^{32-n} + 2^{32-n} - 1]$$, where $$X = x*2^{32-n}$$ has the lower $$n$$ bits set to 0. (For IPv6 substitute 128.) For a fixed $$n$$, the set of all $$X/n$$ subnets constitute a partition, that is a cover of non-overlapping sets. Increasing $$n$$ yields finer and finer subpartitions. Thus two subnets $$X/n$$ and $$Y/m$$ are either disjoint or one is a subnet of the other.

Prefix aggregation
CIDR provides fine-grained routing prefix aggregation. For example, if the first 20 bits of their network prefixes match, sixteen contiguous networks can be aggregated and advertised to a larger network as a single  routing table entry. This reduces the number of routes that have to be advertised.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Classless Inter-Domain Routing


text:
Octet

Octet may refer to:

Music

 * Octet (music), ensemble consisting of eight instruments or voices, or composition written for such an ensemble
 * String octet, a piece of music written for eight string instruments
 * Octet (Mendelssohn), 1825 composition by Felix Mendelssohn
 * Octet (Bruch), 1920 composition by Max Bruch
 * Octet (Beethoven), 1793 composition by Ludwig van Beethoven
 * Octet (Lachner), 1850 composition by Franz Lachner
 * Octet (Reich), 1979 composition by Steve Reich
 * Octet (Reinecke),1892 composition by Carl Reinicke
 * Octet (Schubert), 1824 composition by Franz Schubert
 * Octet (Stravinsky), 1923 composition by Igor Stravinsky
 * Violin octet, a family of stringed instruments
 * Octet (musical), a musical by Dave Malloy

Ballet

 * Octet (Christensen), 1958 ballet by Willam Christensen
 * Octet (Martins), 2003 ballet by Peter Martins

Science and technology

 * Octet (computing), a grouping of eight bits
 * Byte, a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits
 * Octet stream, alternative name for byte stream
 * Octet rule, chemical theory stating that atoms tend to combine so they each have eight valence electrons
 * Octet truss, type of space frame

title: Octet


text:
Humour

Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.

People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by subjective personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or cartoons such as Tom and Jerry or Looney Tunes, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, more sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to a more mature audience.

Theories
Many theories exist about what humour is and what social function it serves. The prevailing types of theories attempting to account for the existence of humour include psychological theories, the vast majority of which consider humour-induced behaviour to be very healthy; spiritual theories, which may, for instance, consider humour to be a "gift from God"; and theories which consider humour to be an unexplainable mystery, very much like a mystical experience.

The benign-violation theory, endorsed by Peter McGraw, attempts to explain humour's existence. The theory says "humour only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe." Humour can be used as a method to easily engage in social interaction by taking away that awkward, uncomfortable, or uneasy feeling of social interactions.

Others believe that "the appropriate use of humour can facilitate social interactions".

Views
Some claim that humour should not be explained. Author E. B. White once said, "Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." Counter to this argument, protests against "offensive" cartoons invite the dissection of humour or its lack by aggrieved individuals and communities. This process of dissecting humour does not necessarily banish a sense of humour but directs attention towards its politics and assumed universality.

Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of humour (a German loanword from English) to mean any type of comedy. However, both humour and comic are often used when theorising about the subject. The connotations of humour as opposed to comic are said to be that of response versus stimulus. Additionally, humour was thought to include a combination of ridiculousness and wit in an individual; the paradigmatic case being Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff. The French were slow to adopt the term humour; in French, humeur and humour are still two different words, the former referring to a person's mood or to the archaic concept of the four humours.

Non-satirical humour can be specifically termed droll humour or recreational drollery.

Sociological factors
As with any art form, the acceptance of a particular style or incidence of humour depends on sociological factors and varies from person to person. Throughout history, comedy has been used as a form of entertainment all over the world, whether in the courts of the Western kings or the villages of the Far East. Both a social etiquette and a certain intelligence can be displayed through forms of wit and sarcasm. Eighteenth-century German author Georg Lichtenberg said that "the more you know humour, the more you become demanding in fineness."

Ancient Greece
Western humour theory begins with Plato, who attributed to Socrates (as a semi-historical dialogue character) in the Philebus (p. 49b) the view that the essence of the ridiculous is an ignorance in the weak, who are thus unable to retaliate when ridiculed. Later, in Greek philosophy, Aristotle, in the Poetics (1449a, pp. 34–35), suggested that an ugliness that does not disgust is fundamental to humour.

India
In ancient Sanskrit drama, Bharata Muni's Natya Shastra defined humour (hāsyam) as one of the nine nava rasas, or principle rasas (emotional responses), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas, the imitations of emotions that the actors perform. Each rasa was associated with a specific bhavas portrayed on stage.

In Arabic and Persian culture
The terms comedy and satire became synonymous after Aristotle's Poetics was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world, where it was elaborated upon by Arabic writers and Islamic philosophers such as Abu Bischr, his pupil Al-Farabi, Persian Avicenna, and Averroes. Due to cultural differences, they disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation, and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply the "art of reprehension" and made no reference to light and cheerful events or troublesome beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century, the term comedy thus gained a new meaning in Medieval literature.

Caribbean
Mento star Lord Flea, stated in a 1957 interview that he thought that: "West Indians have the best sense of humour in the world. Even in the most solemn song, like Las Kean Fine ["Lost and Can Not Be Found"], which tells of a boiler explosion on a sugar plantation that killed several of the workers, their natural wit and humour shine though."

China
Confucianist & Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, with its emphasis on ritual and propriety, have traditionally looked down upon humour as subversive or unseemly. Humour was perceived as irony and sarcasm. The Confucian Analects itself, however, depicts the Master as fond of humorous self-deprecation, once comparing his wanderings to the existence of a homeless dog. Early Daoist philosophical texts such as Zhuangzi pointedly make fun of Confucian seriousness and make Confucius himself a slow-witted figure of fun. Joke books containing a mix of wordplay, puns, situational humour, and play with taboo subjects like sex and scatology, remained popular over the centuries. Local performing arts, storytelling, vernacular fiction, and poetry offer a wide variety of humorous styles and sensibilities.

Famous Chinese humourists include the ancient jesters Chunyu Kun and Dongfang Shuo; writers of the Ming and Qing dynasties such as Feng Menglong, Li Yu, and Wu Jingzi; and modern comic writers such as Lu Xun, Lin Yutang, Lao She, Qian Zhongshu, Wang Xiaobo, and Wang Shuo, and performers such as Ge You, Guo Degang, and Zhou Libo.

Modern Chinese humour has been heavily influenced not only by indigenous traditions, but also by foreign humor, circulated via print culture, cinema, television, and the internet. During the 1930s, Lin Yutang's phono-semantic transliteration yōumò (幽默; humour) caught on as a new term for humour, sparking a fad for humour literature, as well as impassioned debate about what type of humorous sensibility best suited China, a poor, weak country under partial foreign occupation. While some types of comedy were officially sanctioned during the rule of Mao Zedong, the Party-state's approach towards humour was generally repressive. Social liberalisation in the 1980s, commercialisation of the cultural market in the 1990s, and the advent of the internet have each—despite an invasive state-sponsored censorship apparatus—enabled new forms of humour to flourish in China in recent decades.

Social transformation model
The social transformation model of humour predicts that specific characteristics, such as physical attractiveness, interact with humour. This model involves linkages between the humorist, an audience, and the subject matter of the humour. The two transformations associated with this particular model involves the subject matter of the humour, and the change in the audience's perception of the humorous person, therefore establishing a relationship between the humorous speaker and the audience. The social transformation model views humour as adaptive because it communicates the present desire to be humorous as well as future intentions of being humorous. This model is used with deliberate self-deprecating humour where one is communicating with desires to be accepted into someone else's specific social group. Although self-deprecating humour communicates weakness and fallibility in the bid to gain another's affection, it can be concluded from the model that this type of humour can increase romantic attraction towards the humorist when other variables are also favourable.

Physical attractiveness
90% of men and 81% of women, all college students, report having a sense of humour is a crucial characteristic looked for in a romantic partner. Humour and honesty were ranked as the two most important attributes in a significant other. It has since been recorded that humour becomes more evident and significantly more important as the level of commitment in a romantic relationship increases. Recent research suggests expressions of humour in relation to physical attractiveness are two major factors in the desire for future interaction. Women regard physical attractiveness less highly compared to men when it came to dating, a serious relationship, and sexual intercourse. However, women rate humorous men more desirable than nonhumorous individuals for a serious relationship or marriage, but only when these men were physically attractive.

Furthermore, humorous people are perceived by others to be more cheerful but less intellectual than nonhumorous people. Self-deprecating humour has been found to increase one's desirability and physical attractiveness to others for committed relationships. The results of a study conducted by McMaster University suggest humour can positively affect one's desirability for a specific relationship partner, but this effect is only most likely to occur when men use humour and are evaluated by women. No evidence was found to suggest men prefer women with a sense of humour as partners, nor women preferring other women with a sense of humour as potential partners. When women were given the forced-choice design in the study, they chose funny men as potential relationship partners even though they rated them as being less honest and intelligent. Post-Hoc analysis showed no relationship between humour quality and favourable judgments.

Psychological well-being
It is generally known that humour contributes to higher subjective wellbeing (both physical and psychological). Previous research on humour and psychological well-being show that humour is in fact a major factor in achieving, and sustaining, higher psychological wellbeing. This hypothesis is known as general facilitative hypothesis for humour. That is, positive humour leads to positive health. Not all contemporary research, however, supports the previous assertion that humour is in fact a cause for healthier psychological wellbeing. Some of the previous researches' limitations is that they tend to use a unidimensional approach to humour because it was always inferred that humour was deemed positive. They did not consider other types of humour, or humour styles. For example, self-defeating or aggressive humour. Research has proposed 2 types of humour that each consist of 2 styles, making 4 styles in total. The two types are adaptive versus maladaptive humour. Adaptive humour consist of facilitative and self-enhancing humour, and maladaptive is self-defeating and aggressive humour. Each of these styles can have a different impact on psychological and individuals' overall subjective wellbeing.

 * 1) Affiliative style humour. Individuals with this dimension of humour tend to use jokes as a means of affiliating relationships, amusing others, and reducing tensions.
 * 2) Self-enhancing style humour. People that fall under this dimension of humour tend to take a humorous perspective of life. Individuals with self-enhancing humour tend to use it as a mechanism to cope with stress.
 * 3) Aggressive humour. Racist jokes, sarcasm and disparagement of individuals for the purpose of amusement. This type of humour is used by people who do not consider the consequences of their jokes, and mainly focus on the entertainment of the listeners.
 * 4) Self-defeating humour. People with this style of humour tend to amuse others by using self-disparaging jokes, and also tend to laugh along with others when being taunted. It is hypothesised that people attempt to use this style of humour as a means of social acceptance – which is often unsuccessful. It is also mentioned that these people may have an implicit feeling of negativity. So they use this humour as a means of hiding that inner negative feeling.

In the study on humour and psychological well-being, research has concluded that high levels of adaptive type humour (affiliative and self-enhancing) is associated with better self-esteem, positive affect, greater self-competency, as well as anxiety control and social interactions. All of which are constituents of psychological wellbeing. Additionally, adaptive humour styles may enable people to preserve their sense of wellbeing despite psychological problems. In contrast, maladaptive humour types (aggressive and self-defeating) are associated with poorer overall psychological wellbeing, emphasis on higher levels of anxiety and depression. Therefore, humour may have detrimental effects on psychological wellbeing, only if that humour is of negative characteristics.

Physiological effects
Humour is often used to make light of difficult or stressful situations and to brighten up a social atmosphere in general. It is regarded by many as an enjoyable and positive experience, so it would be reasonable to assume that it might have some positive physiological effects on the body.

A study designed to test the positive physiological effects of humour, the relationship between being exposed to humour and pain tolerance in particular, was conducted in 1994 by Karen Zwyer, Barbara Velker, and Willibald Ruch. To test the effects of humour on pain tolerance the test subjects were first exposed to a short humorous video clip and then exposed to the cold pressor test. To identify the aspects of humour which might contribute to an increase in pain tolerance the study separated its fifty-six female participants into three groups, cheerfulness, exhilaration and humour production. The subjects were further separated into two groups, high Trait-Cheerfulness and high Trait-Seriousness according to the State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory. The instructions for the three groups were as follows: the cheerfulness group were told to get excited about the movie without laughing or smiling, the exhilaration group was told to laugh and smile excessively, exaggerating their natural reactions, the humour production group was told to make humorous comments about the video clip as they watched. To ensure that the participants actually found the movie humorous and that it produced the desired effects the participants took a survey on the topic which resulted in a mean score of 3.64 out of 5. The results of the Cold Press Test showed that the participants in all three groups experienced a higher pain threshold and a higher pain tolerance than previous to the film. The results did not show a significant difference between the three groups.

There are also potential relationships between humour and having a healthy immune system. SIgA is a type of antibody that protects the body from infections. In a method similar to the previous experiment, the participants were shown a short humorous video clip and then tested for the effects. The participants showed a significant increase in SIgA levels.

There have been claims that laughter can be a supplement for cardiovascular exercise and might increase muscle tone. However an early study by Paskind J. showed that laughter can lead to a decrease in skeletal muscle tone because the short intense muscle contractions caused by laughter are followed by longer periods of muscle relaxation. The cardiovascular benefits of laughter also seem to be just a figment of imagination as a study that was designed to test oxygen saturation levels produced by laughter, showed that even though laughter creates sporadic episodes of deep breathing, oxygen saturation levels are not affected.

As humour is often used to ease tension, it might make sense that the same would be true for anxiety. A study by Yovetich N, Dale A, Hudak M. was designed to test the effects humour might have on relieving anxiety. The study subject were told that they would be given to an electric shock after a certain period of time. One group was exposed to humorous content, while the other was not. The anxiety levels were measured through self-report measures as well as the heart rate. Subjects which rated high on sense of humour reported less anxiety in both groups, while subjects which rated lower on sense of humour reported less anxiety in the group which was exposed to the humorous material. However, there was not a significant difference in the heart rate between the subjects.

In the workplace
Humour is a ubiquitous, highly ingrained, and largely meaningful aspect of human experience and is therefore decidedly relevant in organisational contexts, such as the workplace.

The significant role that laughter and fun play in organisational life has been seen as a sociological phenomenon and has increasingly been recognised as also creating a sense of involvement and possible comradery among workers. Sharing humour at work not only offers a relief from boredom, but can also build relationships, improve camaraderie between colleagues and create positive affect. Humour in the workplace may also relieve tension and can be used as a coping strategy. In fact, one of the most agreed upon key impacts that workplace humour has on people's well-being, is the use of humour as a coping strategy to aid in dealing with daily stresses, adversity or other difficult situations. Sharing a laugh with a few colleagues may improve moods, which is pleasurable, and people perceive this as positively affecting their ability to cope. Fun and enjoyment are critical in people's lives and the ability for colleagues to be able to laugh during work, through banter or other, promotes harmony and a sense of cohesiveness.

Humour may also be used to offset negative feelings about a workplace task or to mitigate the use of profanity, or other coping strategies, that may not be otherwise tolerated. Not only can humour in the workplace assist with defusing negative emotions, but it may also be used as an outlet to discuss personal painful events, in a lighter context, thus ultimately reducing anxiety and allowing more happy, positive emotions to surface. Additionally, humour may be used as a tool to mitigate the authoritative tone by managers when giving directives to subordinates. Managers may use self-deprecating humour as a way to be perceived as more human and "real" by their employees. The attachment to the notion of fun by contemporary companies has resulted in workplace management coming to recognise the potentially positive effects of "workplay" and realise that it does not necessarily undermine workers' performance.

Laughter and play can unleash creativity, thus raising morale, so in the interest of encouraging employee consent to the rigours of the labour process, management often ignore, tolerate and even actively encourage playful practices, with the purpose of furthering organisational goals. Essentially, fun in the workplace is no longer being seen as frivolous. The most current approach of managed fun and laughter in the workplace originated in North America, where it has taken off to such a degree, that it has humour consultants flourishing, as some states have introduced an official "fun at work" day. The results have carried claims of well-being benefits to workers, improved customer experiences and an increase in productivity that organisations can enjoy, as a result. Others examined results of this movement while focusing around the science of happiness—concerned with mental health, motivation, community building and national well-being—and drew attention to the ability to achieve "flow" through playfulness and stimulate "outside the box" thinking. Parallel to this movement is the "positive" scholarship that has emerged in psychology which seeks to empirically theorise the optimisation of human potential. This happiness movement suggests that investing in fun at the workplace, by allowing for laughter and play, will not only create enjoyment and a greater sense of well-being, but it will also enhance energy, performance and commitment in workers.

At school
The use of humour plays an important role in youth development. Studies have shown that humour is especially important in social interactions with peers. School entry is the time when the importance of parents fades into the background and social interaction with peers becomes increasingly important. Conflict is inherent in these interactions. The use of humour plays an important role in conflict resolution and ultimately in school success and psychological adjustment. The use of humour that is socially acceptable leads to a lower likelihood of being a victim of bullying, whereas the use of self-disparaging humour leads to a higher likelihood of being bullied. When students are bullied, the use of self-disparaging humour can lead to an exacerbation of the negative effects on the student's psychological adjustment to school.

Laughter

One of the main focuses of modern psychological humour theory and research is to establish and clarify the correlation between humour and laughter. The major empirical findings here are that laughter and humour do not always have a one-to-one association. While most previous theories assumed the connection between the two almost to the point of them being synonymous, psychology has been able to scientifically and empirically investigate the supposed connection, its implications, and significance.

In 2009, Diana Szameitat conducted a study to examine the differentiation of emotions in laughter. They hired actors and told them to laugh with one of four different emotional associations by using auto-induction, where they would focus exclusively on the internal emotion and not on the expression of laughter itself. They found an overall recognition rate of 44%, with joy correctly classified at 44%, tickle 45%, schadenfreude 37%, and taunt 50%. Their second experiment tested the behavioural recognition of laughter during an induced emotional state and they found that different laughter types did differ with respect to emotional dimensions. In addition, the four emotional states displayed a full range of high and low sender arousal and valence. This study showed that laughter can be correlated with both positive (joy and tickle) and negative (schadenfreude and taunt) emotions with varying degrees of arousal in the subject.

This brings into question the definition of humour, then. If it is to be defined by the cognitive processes which display laughter, then humour itself can encompass a variety of negative as well as positive emotions. However, if humour is limited to positive emotions and things which cause positive affect, it must be delimited from laughter and their relationship should be further defined.

Health
Adaptive Humour use has shown to be effective for increasing resilience in dealing with distress and also effective in buffering against or undoing negative affects. In contrast, maladaptive humour use can magnify potential negative effects.

Madelijn Strick, Rob Holland, Rick van Baaren, and Ad van Knippenberg (2009) of Radboud University conducted a study that showed the distracting nature of a joke on bereaved individuals. Subjects were presented with a wide range of negative pictures and sentences. Their findings showed that humorous therapy attenuated the negative emotions elicited after negative pictures and sentences were presented. In addition, the humour therapy was more effective in reducing negative affect as the degree of affect increased in intensity. Humour was immediately effective in helping to deal with distress. The escapist nature of humour as a coping mechanism suggests that it is most useful in dealing with momentary stresses. Stronger negative stimuli requires a different therapeutic approach.

Humour is an underlying character trait associated with the positive emotions used in the broaden-and-build theory of cognitive development.

Studies, such as those testing the undoing hypothesis, have shown several positive outcomes of humour as an underlying positive trait in amusement and playfulness. Several studies have shown that positive emotions can restore autonomic quiescence after negative affect. For example, Frederickson and Levinson showed that individuals who expressed Duchenne smiles during the negative arousal of a sad and troubling event recovered from the negative affect approximately 20% faster than individuals who did not smile.

Using humour judiciously can have a positive influence on cancer treatment. The effectiveness for humour‐based interventions in patients with schizophrenia is uncertain in a Cochrane review.

Humour can serve as a strong distancing mechanism in coping with adversity. In 1997, Kelter and Bonanno found that Duchenne laughter correlated with reduced awareness of distress. Positive emotion is able to loosen the grip of negative emotions on people's thinking. A distancing of thought leads to a distancing of the unilateral responses people often have to negative arousal. In parallel with the distancing role plays in coping with distress, it supports the broaden and build theory that positive emotions lead to increased multilateral cognitive pathway and social resource building.

Ageing
Humour has been shown to improve and help the ageing process in three areas. The areas are improving physical health, improving social communications, and helping to achieve a sense of satisfaction in life.

Studies have shown that constant humour in the ageing process gives health benefits to individuals. Such benefits as higher self-esteem, lower levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress, and a more positive self-concept as well as other health benefits which have been recorded and acknowledged through various studies. Even patients with specific diseases have shown improvement with ageing using humour. Overall there is a strong correlation through constant humour in ageing and better health in the individuals.

Another way that research indicates that humour helps with the ageing process, is through helping the individual to create and maintain strong social relationship during transitory periods in their lives. One such example is when people are moved into nursing homes or other facilities of care. With this transition certain social interactions with friend and family may be limited forcing the individual to look elsewhere for these social interactions. Humour has been shown to make transitions easier, as humour is shown reduce stress and facilitate socialisation and serves as a social bonding function. Humour may also help the transition in helping the individual to maintain positive feelings towards those who are enforcing the changes in their lives. These new social interactions can be critical for these transitions in their lives and humour will help these new social interactions to take place making these transitions easier.

Humour can also help ageing individuals maintain a sense of satisfaction in their lives. Through the ageing process many changes will occur, such as losing the right to drive a car. This can cause a decrease in satisfaction in the lives of the individual. Humour helps to alleviate this decrease of satisfaction by allowing the humour to release stress and anxiety caused by changes in the individuals life. Laughing and humour can be a substitute for the decrease in satisfaction by allowing individuals to feel better about their situations by alleviating the stress. This, in turn, can help them to maintain a sense of satisfaction towards their new and changing life style.

Physiology
In an article published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, it is reported that a study's results indicate that humour is rooted in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The study states, in part:"Humour seems to engage a core network of cortical and subcortical structures, including temporo-occipito-parietal areas involved in detecting and resolving incongruity (mismatch between expected and presented stimuli); and the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic system and the amygdala, key structures for reward and salience processing."

Formula
Humour can be verbal, visual, or physical. Non-verbal forms of communication–for example, music or visual art–can also be humorous.

Root components

 * Being reflective of or imitative of reality
 * Surprise/misdirection, contradiction/paradox, ambiguity.

Methods

 * Farce
 * Hyperbole
 * Metaphor
 * Pun
 * Reframing
 * Timing

Behaviour, place and size
Rowan Atkinson explains in his lecture in the documentary Funny Business that an object or a person can become funny in three ways:
 * by behaving in an unusual way,
 * by being in an unusual place,
 * by being the wrong size.

Most sight gags fit into one or more of these categories.

Exaggeration
Some theoreticians of the comic consider exaggeration to be a universal comic device. It may take different forms in different genres, but all rely on the fact that the easiest way to make things laughable is to exaggerate to the point of absurdity their salient traits,

Taxonomy
There are many taxonomies of humour; the following is used to classify humorous tweets in (Rayz 2012).
 * 1) Anecdotes
 * 2) Fantasy
 * 3) Insult
 * 4) Irony
 * 5) Jokes
 * 6) Observational
 * 7) Quote
 * 8) Role play
 * 9) Self-deprecation
 * 10) Vulgarity
 * 11) Word play
 * 12) Other

Culture
Different cultures have different typical expectations of humour so comedy shows are not always successful when transplanted into another culture. For example, a 2004 BBC News article discusses a stereotype among British comedians that Americans and Germans do not understand irony, and therefore UK sitcoms are not appreciated by them.

title: Humour


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Group sex

Group sex is sexual activity involving more than two people. Participants in group sex can be of any sexual orientation or gender. Any form of sexual activity can be adopted to involve more than two participants, but some forms have their own names.

Group sex most commonly takes place in a private sex party or semi-public swinger gathering, but may also take place at massage parlors or brothels or, in some jurisdictions, at purpose-built locations such as sex clubs. In places where non-monogamous sex is taboo or illegal, group sex may take place in private or clandestine locations including homes, hotel rooms, or private clubs.

Fantasies of group sex are extremely common among both men and women. Many forms of sexual behavior were reported by Kinsey's subjects, but the official Kinsey Reports website does not mention threesomes or group sex in the summary of Kinsey's findings.

Group sex is a subgenre in pornographic films.

Terms

In principle, any sexual behavior performed by more than two people can be referred to as group sex, but various terms are used to describe particular acts or combinations of people. Many swingers argue that non-swingers have conflated the terms because of lack of understanding and that there are distinct differences among the terms with specific meanings as to number, intent, sexual orientation, and familiarity of the persons involved.

 * Circle jerk: Group masturbation among men, usually sitting in somewhat of a circle formation.
 * Daisy chain: Group of participants perform cunnilingus or fellatio on each other in a circular formation, permitting each participant to both give and receive oral sex simultaneously.
 * Gang bang: A number of people performing sex acts on one person, either in turn or at the same time.
 * Reverse gang bang: Sexual intercourse involving multiple women in which one man is the central focus
 * Threesome or three-way: Three people all having sexual relations, not necessarily simultaneously. Not to be confused with ménage à trois (literally, "household of three").
 * Foursome or four-way: Sex between four people. Not to be confused with ménage à quatre (literally, "household of four").
 * Double penetration: When a person is entered or penetrated in the vagina and/or anus by two people at the same time. This is usually when one person enters the anus while another enters the vagina; however, it also refers to two simultaneous penetrations in the same orifice.
 * Spintrian: A term used by Suetonius to describe sexual group practices indulged in by the emperor Tiberius on Capri.
 * Monogamous group sex or same room sex (a.k.a. soft swapping): Couples engaging in sexual activity in the same room but in separate pairs, without any swapping of partners or other major sexual activity between couples.

Types of sex party
A sex party is a gathering at which sexual activity takes place. Sex parties may be organized to enable people to engage in casual sexual activity or for swinging couples or people interested in group sex to meet, but any gathering where sexual activity is anticipated can be called a sex party.

There are a number of types of sex parties:

Swinger party/gathering
A swinger party or partner-swapping party is a gathering at which individuals or couples in a committed relationship can engage in sexual activities with others as a recreational or social activity.

Swinger parties may involve various group sex activities. Partners can engage in penetrative sex, known as "full swap", or choose to "soft swap" in which they engage only in non-penetrative sex. New swinging couples often choose a soft swap before they are comfortable with a full swap, although many couples stay soft swap for personal reasons. "Soft swinging" is when a couple engages in sexual activities with only each other while other couples perform sex acts in the immediate vicinity. Technically this is a form of exhibitionism rather than "group sex" per se.

Orgy
An orgy is a gathering where guests freely engage in open and unrestrained sexual activity or group sex; and a bunga bunga orgy is an orgy in which participants have sex underwater, such as in a swimming pool or a hot tub.

Daisy chain

A daisy chain refers to a sexual act involving three or more people, during which each person simultaneously has sex with the person beside them in the group, thus forming a chain. Some sources consider only groups of four or more people to be a daisy chain.

Thus, in an "erotic foursome or partie-carrée, "two couples ... form a chain or Maltese cross carefully alternating man and woman".

"The matter of ... erotic or spintrian chains ('daisy-chains')", i.e., "of 'spintries' or erotic human chains, ... has been taken to ... permutational development in the appendix of postures to the well-known Manual of Classical Erotology (1824) of the Fichtean philosopher, Friedrich Karl Forberg, and in a Swedish work, Ju fler vi är tillsammans ('The More the Merrier'), by a schoolteacher, Ragnar Aaslund, published in 1966 and intended frankly as a manual of group-sex."

Health
As with all sexual activity, the relative risks of group sex depend on the specific activities engaged in, although having a large number of sexual partners increases one's risk of exposure to sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

From the mid-1980s there was active lobbying against gay bathhouses, blaming them for the spread of STIs, in particular HIV, and this forced closures in some jurisdictions, particularly in the United States. Sociologist Stephen O. Murray writes that, "there was never any evidence presented that going to bathhouses was a risk-factor for contracting AIDS." This statement ignored the fact that few studies had been done. Later studies have confirmed a higher risk off STI from bathhouses. In other countries, fears about the spread of STIs have prompted the closing of bathhouses—with their private rooms—in favour of sex clubs, in which all sexual activity takes place in the open, and can be observed by monitors whose job it is to enforce safer sex practices.

Proponents claim that venues where group sex takes place often provide condoms, dental dams, latex gloves, lubricants and other items for safer sex, although they cannot prove that use of those items are used and use is typically not mandated. Bathhouses in particular are a major source of safer sex information—they provide pamphlets and post safer sex posters prominently (often on the walls of each room as well as in the common areas), provide free condoms and lubricants, and often require patrons to affirm that they will only have safer sex on the premises.

Prevalence
In a 2015 US survey, a significantly larger percentage of men than women responded that they had any lifetime experience of a threesome (17.8 vs 10.3) or group sex (11.5 vs 6.3).

Law
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalized homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age in private in England and Wales; however, the privacy restrictions of the Act meant a third person could not participate in the sex or even be present, as well as that the two men could not have sex in a hotel. These restrictions were overturned in the European Court of Human Rights in 2000.

Section 20A of the Immorality Act, 1957, commonly known as the "men at a party" clause, was a South African law that criminalized all sexual acts between men that occurred in the presence of a third person. The section was enacted by the Immorality Amendment Act, 1969 and remained in force until it was found to be unconstitutional in 1998 by the Constitutional Court in the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice.

A 1996 sexual harassment case filed against Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) highlighted corporate involvement by Mitsubishi in sex parties arranged by managers and other employees. Group sex is illegal in China, due to Article 301 of China's 1997 Criminal Law which bans “group licentiousness”.

In Canada, in a 2002 decision regarding a case in which three people were engaged in sexual intercourse, the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta declared section 159 of the Criminal Code in its entirety to be null, including the provisions criminalizing anal sex when more than two persons are taking part or present. In June 2019, C-75 passed both houses of the Parliament of Canada and received royal assent, repealing section 159 effective immediately.

Media portrayals
Sex parties, under various names, have been a common focus of moral panics fed by media reports claiming that such parties are prevalent, or growing in prevalence, especially among teenagers.

Sensational media reports about the prevalence of sex parties, especially among young people, appear with some regularity. In the early 1950s, for example, it was alleged that teenage girls, mainly throughout the Southern and Midwestern United States were forming "non-virgin clubs", in which they organized and held sex orgies with reports of couples being paired off by drawing numbers from a hat. These claims were investigated and debunked.

Several stories of this type arose in the US in 2003. In New York, rumors began that teens had been taking days off from school to attend "hooky parties" while their parents were at work. One school even suspended a group of girls for allegedly skipping school to attend such a party, refusing to let them return to school until each had submitted to a medical examination for sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy, and school officials were allowed to examine the results. The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit against the school on behalf of the girls and won a settlement which included monetary damages and a change in the school district's policy.

A rainbow party is a baseless urban legend spread from the early 2000s. At these events, females wearing various shades of lipstick reportedly took turns fellating males in sequence, leaving multiple colours on their penises, ignoring the fact that in such a situation the colors would blend. Rainbow parties were covered on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2003, and became the subject of a juvenile novel called Rainbow Party. On May 27, 2010, the television program The Doctors discussed the topic with dozens of teens, parents, and professionals. However, sex researchers and adolescent health care professionals have found no evidence for the existence of rainbow parties, and as such attribute the spread of the stories to a moral panic.

Similar stories concerning teenagers using gel bracelets as coupons or signals for sex also arose at the time, with a similar lack of corroborating evidence.

title: Group sex


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Regression testing

Regression testing (rarely, non-regression testing ) is re-running functional and non-functional tests to ensure that previously developed and tested software still performs as expected after a change. If not, that would be called a regression.

Changes that may require regression testing include bug fixes, software enhancements, configuration changes, and even substitution of electronic components (hardware). As regression test suites tend to grow with each found defect, test automation is frequently involved. The evident exception is the GUIs regression testing, which normally must be executed manually. Sometimes a change impact analysis is performed to determine an appropriate subset of tests (non-regression analysis ).

Background
As software is updated or changed, or reused on a modified target, emergence of new faults and/or re-emergence of old faults is quite common.

Sometimes re-emergence occurs because a fix gets lost through poor revision control practices (or simple human error in revision control). Often, a fix for a problem will be "fragile" in that it fixes the problem in the narrow case where it was first observed but not in more general cases which may arise over the lifetime of the software. Frequently, a fix for a problem in one area inadvertently causes a software bug in another area.

It may happen that when a feature is redesigned some of the same mistakes that were made in the original implementation of the feature also occur in the redesign. In most software development situations, it is considered good coding practice, when a bug is located and fixed, to record a test that exposes the bug and re-run that test regularly after subsequent changes to the program.

Although this may be done through manual testing procedures using programming techniques, it is often done using automated testing tools. Such a test suite contains software tools that allow the testing environment to execute all the regression test cases automatically; many projects have automated Continuous integration systems to re-run all regression tests at specified intervals and report any failures (which could imply a regression or an out-of-date test).

Common strategies are to run such a system after every successful compile (for small projects), every night, or once a week. Those strategies can be automated by an external tool.

Regression testing is an integral part of the extreme programming software development method. In this method, design documents are replaced by extensive, repeatable, and automated testing of the entire software package throughout each stage of the software development process. Regression testing is done after functional testing has concluded, to verify that the other functionalities are working.

In the corporate world, regression testing has traditionally been performed by a software quality assurance team after the development team has completed work. However, defects found at this stage are the most costly to fix. This problem is being addressed by the rise of unit testing. Although developers have always written test cases as part of the development cycle, these test cases have generally been either functional tests or unit tests that verify only intended outcomes. Developer testing compels a developer to focus on unit testing and to include both positive and negative test cases.

Techniques
The various regression testing techniques are:

Retest all
This technique checks all the test cases on the current program to check its integrity. Though it is expensive as it needs to re-run all the cases, it ensures that there are no errors because of the modified code.

Regression test selection
Unlike Retest all, this technique runs a part of the test suite (owing to the cost of retest all) if the cost of selecting the part of the test suite is less than the Retest all technique.

Test case prioritization
Prioritize the test cases so as to increase a test suite's rate of fault detection. Test case prioritization techniques schedule test cases so that the test cases that are higher in priority are executed before the test cases that have a lower priority.

Types of test case prioritization

 * General prioritization – Prioritize test cases that will be beneficial on subsequent versions
 * Version-specific prioritization – Prioritize test cases with respect to a particular version of the software.

Hybrid
This technique is a hybrid of regression test selection and test case prioritization.

Benefits and drawbacks
Regression testing is performed when changes are made to the existing functionality of the software or if there is a bug fix in the software. Regression testing can be achieved through multiple approaches; if a test all approach is followed, it provides certainty that the changes made to the software have not affected the existing functionalities, which are unaltered.

In agile software development—where the software development life cycles are very short, resources are scarce, and changes to the software are very frequent—regression testing might introduce a lot of unnecessary overhead.

In a software development environment which tends to use black box components from a third party, performing regression testing can be tricky, as any change in the third-party component may interfere with the rest of the system (and performing regression testing on a third-party component is difficult, because it is an unknown entity).

Uses
Regression testing can be used not only for testing the correctness of a program but often also for tracking the quality of its output. For instance, in the design of a compiler, regression testing could track the code size and the time it takes to compile and execute the test suite cases.

Regression tests can be broadly categorized as functional tests or unit tests. Functional tests exercise the complete program with various inputs. Unit tests exercise individual functions, subroutines, or object methods. Both functional testing tools and unit-testing tools tend to be automated and are often third-party products that are not part of the compiler suite. A functional test may be a scripted series of program inputs, possibly even involving an automated mechanism for controlling mouse movements and clicks. A unit test may be a set of separate functions within the code itself or a driver layer that links to the code without altering the code being tested.

title: Regression testing