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| From | Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: Regression testing for pointers |
| Date | 2012-03-10 03:14 +0000 |
| Organization | Aioe.org NNTP Server |
| Message-ID | <20120309184942.431@kylheku.com> (permalink) |
| References | <jje4jg$l8k$1@speranza.aioe.org> |
On 2012-03-09, Don Y <this@isnotme.com> wrote: > In particular, I am trying to develop a test suite for my > dynamic memory management functions (e.g., malloc and free > types of routines). > > I.e., I can't come up with "constant" results against > which to compare test-time results. Sticking with the > traditional malloc/free for example (my routines are > more heavily parameterized), I can create a malloc.test > that pushes size_t's to malloc. But, aside from verifying > the result is not NULL (or, *is* NULL, in some cases!), > there's nothing I can do to check that the result is > actually correct! A possible regression test case for malloc routines is a program which beats up the routines, performs certain validation on the inputs and terminates successfully. > About the only thing I can check for is if that second > invocation returned 0x12345699 (which overlaps the previous > allocation at 0x12345678!). You could allocate some random blocks and keep them in an array. All such blocks should be non-overlapping. Another thing to test for is that the allocator is not getting confused and overwriting the data areas of the blocks. Put data in the blocks and maintain checksums. Check that the allocator operations do not change anything. Also, the regression test does not have to use only the public routines. Give your allocator routines some debugging functions. The test could check, for instance, that the allocator's data structures have returned to some proper state after the blocks have been freed. This could be repeated for different orders of freeing the blocks: in order, in reverse order, in scrambled order. You could have some self-check routines in the allocator. For instance if it keeps counters about how much has been allocated, etc, a function could be provided which performs a check by walking the data structure to validate that the meta-data matches the structure. > Furthermore, just examining the results from malloc don't > tell me that the freelist is being maintained, properly. See above: expose an internal routine that validates the sanity of the free list, and use it in the regression test case. > Of course, I can write code to inspect these objects in > greater detail. But, then the test scaffolding starts to > rival the complexity of the functions being tested! (bugs) But that is fine because that scaffolding isn't what is being deployed. A wind tunnel is going to be larger than the aircraft part being tested. That's a given. > I guess the "ideal" I see would be to be able to build a > "memory image" and verify that the functions cause expected > and predicted changes in that "image". That's not a bad idea. The image will likely contain pointers. Those can be normalized by changing them to offsets from the base address. As a substitute for a binary image dump, you could have a symbolic dump which traverses everything and produces a printed representation of it. > But, I can't see any way to make this NOT require some sort > of active probing of memory by the test scaffolding (which > means the internals of the functions have to be exposed to > the test suite). Exposing internals to a regression test: fine idea. Would you not test electronic hardware with some probes to check voltage levels and signals?
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Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-09 16:43 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-10 12:56 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-09 19:40 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-10 17:53 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-10 18:12 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 02:05 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-10 23:17 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-03-10 12:00 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-11 11:00 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ike Naar <ike@iceland.freeshell.org> - 2012-03-10 22:23 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-03-10 22:40 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-11 12:12 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-03-11 00:42 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-11 14:26 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2012-03-11 03:09 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-11 18:16 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 12:01 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-11 10:35 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 09:19 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 07:23 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 16:23 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 17:25 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 00:19 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 20:34 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 01:00 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 21:22 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 10:19 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-14 07:25 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 02:00 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-14 22:18 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 11:32 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-15 05:58 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-15 05:55 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-15 11:32 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-16 18:14 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-20 01:43 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-20 21:59 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-16 03:05 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-20 02:33 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-24 11:49 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-11 05:01 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-11 09:44 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-12 09:56 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-10 02:28 -0800
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 11:09 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-03-10 18:29 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-11 05:22 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-11 09:50 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-03-13 13:09 +0100
Re: Regression testing for pointers Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-03-10 03:14 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 12:42 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2012-03-10 08:42 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 02:19 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-03-10 15:54 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-10 11:49 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-11 06:09 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-11 12:33 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers nick_keighley_nospam@hotmail.com - 2012-03-12 03:29 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 10:01 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2012-03-13 18:56 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 16:31 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Jorgen Grahn <grahn+nntp@snipabacken.se> - 2012-03-12 00:30 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 16:41 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-12 13:39 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 09:36 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 07:25 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 16:28 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-03-13 04:20 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 17:34 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 00:29 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 17:31 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 01:05 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-13 21:30 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-13 10:43 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2012-03-10 15:41 -0800
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-11 11:23 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2012-03-13 13:43 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 01:45 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2012-03-14 15:15 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Kaz Kylheku <kaz@kylheku.com> - 2012-03-14 22:57 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2012-03-15 13:10 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers jgk@panix.com (Joe keane) - 2012-03-16 22:20 +0000
Re: Regression testing for pointers "io_x" <a@b.c.invalid> - 2012-03-18 07:15 +0100
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 23:13 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers gordonb.b29ri@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) - 2012-03-12 19:37 -0500
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-12 19:23 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-14 13:12 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 01:54 -0700
Re: Regression testing for pointers Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com> - 2012-03-14 22:05 +1300
Re: Regression testing for pointers Don Y <this@isnotme.com> - 2012-03-14 11:54 -0700
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