Quadri-wave lateral shearing interferometry (QWLSI) is a new and powerful technique for wave-front measurement. This paper deduced the principle of QWLSI in details, showed a Fourier analysis of the resulting interferogram, then obtained a wave-front with high accuracy and minimum reconstruction error by using the least square method. Finally a 532nm laser was measured to validate the reconstruction, and the error analysis was discussed in practical laser metrology. It is concluded that QWLSI provides a better choice for the adaptive optics as compared with traditional lateral shearing interferometer (TLSI) and Shack-Hartmann (S-H) wave-front sensor.