Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program

From	Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Newsgroups	comp.compilers
Subject	Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program
Date	2022-10-22 08:49 +0000
Organization	news.netcologne.de
Message-ID	<22-10-042@comp.compilers> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <22-10-031@comp.compilers> <22-10-035@comp.compilers> <22-10-036@comp.compilers> <22-10-039@comp.compilers> <22-10-040@comp.compilers>

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gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> schrieb:
> On Friday, October 21, 2022 at 4:46:28 PM UTC-7, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
>> Traditionally, internal compiler errors on invalid code have been
>> considered relatively easy. But you may always find a hard one...
>
> Reminds me of the story (I never saw anyone do it) that in the early days
> of compilers, they would feed cards from the card recycle bin to them.
>
> That is, as you note, a test of (most likely) invalid code.
>
> But now that we don't have card recycle bins, where do you get a good
> selection of invalid code to test them with?

There appears to be an art to it.  At least one frequent submitter
of bug reports to gfortran has mastered, but I don't know how he
does it (and haven't asked).

An automated code generator which generates valid programs according
to the syntax and semantics rules of a langauge and then systematically
violates the rules (especially those prescribed outside the formal
grammar) one by one might be possible.  Alternatively, it might
also be feasible to parse an existing code base and systematically
insert violations there.

I am not sure that research has been one on that, but it would
be interesting.
[I believe I have seen both random program generators and "fuzzers"
that make random changes to programs.  This isn't just for compilers,
it's for anything that is supposed to interpret its input. -John]

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What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Tianbo Hao <tianboh@alumni.cmu.edu> - 2022-10-18 14:52 +0800
  RE: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program "Nuno Lopes" <nuno.lopes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt> - 2022-10-19 09:30 +0100
    Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-10-20 11:30 +0200
      Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2022-10-21 03:37 +0000
        Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-21 21:32 +0000
          Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-21 16:56 -0700
            Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-22 08:49 +0000
              Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Hans-Peter Diettrich <DrDiettrich1@netscape.net> - 2022-10-23 01:27 +0200
                Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-23 00:00 -0700
                Re: random debugging, What should I prepare for a PL PhD program Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2022-10-23 09:28 +0000
  Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> - 2022-10-19 01:33 -0700
  Re: What should I prepare for a PL PhD program anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2022-10-20 07:33 +0000

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