Re: Testing strategy for compiler

Matthias-Christian Ott <ott@mirix.org> wrote:
>
>If you have a formal (generative) grammar for your language, you can
>generate all valid strings of language and test whether your parser
>recognises them. So you have practical tests which also cover obscure
>programmes. You could use yagg [1] for this purpose.


As our esteemed moderator points out, you also want to test invalid
inputs. One possible tactic is to randomly perturb a valid program by
adding and/or deleting a few characters or tokens. (Though it might be
tricky to ensure you don't make an edit that leaves the program valid!)


Tony.
--
f.anthony.n.finch <dot@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
[I recall seeing some work about a decade ago on making small perturbations
to the source code of programs. -John]

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