What is a limitation of statement coverage in testing?

Statement coverage is a testing technique that focuses on ensuring that each executable statement in a program is executed at least once during testing. While this approach is beneficial for identifying whether code is being executed, it has notable limitations, particularly in terms of comprehensiveness.

The essence of the selected answer is that statement coverage does not guarantee that all possible execution paths are tested. This is crucial because a program may have complex logic, including conditional statements (like if-else and switch-case structures). Even if every individual statement is executed, some paths may not be traversed. For instance, a condition may evaluate in a way that leads to one branch being taken over another, and if not adequately tested, bugs may exist in those untested execution paths. Therefore, while statement coverage ensures a basic level of testing, it can miss critical scenarios, leading to undetected faults that could cause issues in production.

This lack of path coverage highlights why techniques like branch coverage or path coverage are often recommended in tandem with statement coverage for a more thorough evaluation of the application's behavior during execution.