dry run

n. rehearsal of a schemed action or planned activity; exercise of firing without live ammunition

A dry run is a testing process where the effects of a possible failure are intentionally mitigated. For example, the individuals who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US prepared for their missions by staging dry runs on the same flights before the actual attack.In computer studies, a dry run is a mental run of a program, where the programmer examines the source code one step at a time and determines what it will do when run.The usage of "dry run" in acceptance procedures (for example in the so called FAT = Factory Acceptance Procedure) is meant as following: the factory (which is a subcontractor) must perform a complete test of the system it has to deliver before the actual acceptance from the contractor side.
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Noun
1. a practice session in preparation for a public performance (as of a play or speech or concert); "he missed too many rehearsals"; "a rehearsal will be held the day before the wedding"
(synonym) rehearsal
(hypernym) exercise, practice, drill, practice session, recitation
(hyponym) dress rehearsal
(classification) concert

<programming> To execute a program by hand, writing values of variables and other run-time data on paper, in order to check its operation or to track down a bug. A dry run is an extreme form of desk check and is practical only for fairly simple programs and small amounts of data.
(1996-05-13)

complete rehearsal, walk through Let's do a dry run of our play so I can add the background music.