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Failing faster: overlapping patterns for property-based testing

Fowler, Jonathan; Hutton, Graham

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Authors

Jonathan Fowler



Abstract

In property-based testing, a key problem is generating input data that satisfies the precondition of a property. One approach is to attempt to do so automatically, from the definition of the precondition itself. This idea has been realised using the technique of needed narrowing, as in the Lazy SmallCheck system, however in practice this method often leads to excessive backtracking resulting in poor efficiency. To reduce the amount of backtracking, we develop an extension to needed narrowing that allows preconditions to fail faster based on the use of overlapping patterns. We formalise our extension, show how it can be implemented, and demonstrate that it improves efficiency in many cases.

Citation

Fowler, J., & Hutton, G. (2017). Failing faster: overlapping patterns for property-based testing. In Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages: 19th International Symposium, PADL 2017, Paris, France, January 16-17, 2017: Proceedings (103-119). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51676-9-7

Conference Name 19th International Symposium on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages
Start Date Jan 16, 2017
End Date Jan 20, 2017
Acceptance Date Oct 23, 2016
Online Publication Date Apr 1, 2017
Publication Date Apr 1, 2017
Deposit Date Nov 14, 2016
Publicly Available Date Apr 2, 2018
Publisher Springer Publishing Company
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Pages 103-119
Series Title Lecture Notes in Computer Science
Series Number 10137
Series ISSN 0302-9743
Book Title Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages: 19th International Symposium, PADL 2017, Paris, France, January 16-17, 2017: Proceedings
Chapter Number 7
ISBN 978-3-319-51676-9
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51676-9-7
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/822114
Publisher URL https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783319516752
Contract Date Nov 14, 2016

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