rustkas

rustkas

Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir: implementation without map module restriction is better choise for CSV parser (page 148)

CSV parsing

Dear author, @ferd, I am solely out of positive motives and a desire to improve the books, I would like to suggest that you think about update the section without the help of the maps module functionality in future editions of your very informative and useful book. As shown by the working tests and the implementation that I did without using this module, but using an older ones (lists, proplists) (and as the last test convincingly showed) - the maps module is not the best and not very visual solution for this task, moreover, it has limitations in which there is no need.

%% @doc this counterexample is taken literally from the RFC and cannot
%% work with the current implementation because maps have no dupe keys
dupe_keys_unsupported_test() ->
    CSV = "field_name,field_name,field_name\r\n"
          "aaa,bbb,ccc\r\n"
          "zzz,yyy,xxx\r\n",
    [Map1, Map2] = bday_csv:decode(CSV),
    %?debugFmt("Map1 = ~p~nMap2 = ~p~n", [Map1, Map2]),
    %?debugFmt("Map2 = ~p~n",[Map2]),
    ?assertEqual(1, length(maps:keys(Map1))),
    ?assertEqual(1, length(maps:keys(Map2))),
    ?assertMatch(#{"field_name" := _}, Map1),
    ?assertMatch(#{"field_name" := _}, Map2).

See what we can get by simplifying our CSV parser implementation:

%% @doc this counterexample is taken literally from the RFC
dupe_keys_unsupported_test() ->
    CSV = "field_name,field_name,field_name\r\n"
          "aaa,bbb,ccc\r\n"
          "zzz,yyy,xxx\r\n",
    Result = bday_csv_tuple:decode(CSV),
    List = lists:flatten(Result),
    ?assertEqual(6, length(List)),
    lists:foreach(fun(Elem) -> ?assertMatch({"field_name", _}, Elem) end, List).

Link to source code

Marked As Solved

ferd

ferd

Author of Property-Based Testing with PropEr, LYSE, & Erlang in Anger

That would make the implementation and testing shorter, but do note that the chapter has chosen to use maps as a datastructure for its ease of use to the callers.

That there is a mismatch between the chosen disk format and the useful code format is one of the interesting things that come up and we have to adjust to: either change the spec, or tweak the tests. You are suggesting the former, the book went for the latter.

There is a last gotcha implicit to the implementation of our CSV parser: since it uses maps, duplicate column names are not tolerated. Since our CSV files have to be used to represent a database, it is probably a fine assumption to make about the data set that column names are all unique. All in all, we’re probably good ignoring duplicate columns and single-columns CSV files since it’s unlikely database tables would be that way either, but it’s not fully CSV compliant.

If your CSV parser now supports multiple duplicate columns, there is now a concern that the code that uses the returned lists is able to deal with the edge case of multiple keys being returned, or that a conversion step that removes (or errors on) duplicates is added and also tested. I tend to like narrowing all of this at the edge of the system (when converting from CSV to what is now safe internally).

Your approach is fine and simplifies the CSV testing (your snippets are cleaner), but you should still expect to add specific testing elsewhere in the application that tackles that mismatch between what CSV supports and what the records represented by a database would support somewhere.

Where Next?

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

jimmykiang
This test is broken right out of the box… — FAIL: TestAgent (7.82s) agent_test.go:77: Error Trace: agent_test.go:77 agent_test.go:...
New
Alexandr
Hi everyone! There is an error on the page 71 in the book “Programming machine learning from coding to depp learning” P. Perrotta. You c...
New
edruder
I thought that there might be interest in using the book with Rails 6.1 and Ruby 2.7.2. I’ll note what I needed to do differently here. ...
New
alanq
This isn’t directly about the book contents so maybe not the right forum…but in some of the code apps (e.g. turbo/06) it sends a TURBO_ST...
New
Chrichton
Dear Sophie. I tried to do the “Authorization” exercise and have two questions: When trying to plug in an email-service, I found the ...
New
jgchristopher
“The ProductLive.Index template calls a helper function, live_component/3, that in turn calls on the modal component. ” Excerpt From: Br...
New
nicoatridge
Hi, I have just acquired Michael Fazio’s “Kotlin and Android Development” to learn about game programming for Android. I have a game in p...
New
dsmith42
Hey there, I’m enjoying this book and have learned a few things alredayd. However, in Chapter 4 I believe we are meant to see the “>...
New
New
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Stop developing web apps with yesterday’s tools. Today, developers are increasingly adopting Clojure as a web-development platform. See f...
New
DevotionGeo
I know that these benchmarks might not be the exact picture of real-world scenario, but still I expect a Rust web framework performing a ...
New
Exadra37
I am thinking in building or buy a desktop computer for programing, both professionally and on my free time, and my choice of OS is Linux...
New
dasdom
No chair. I have a standing desk. This post was split into a dedicated thread from our thread about chairs :slight_smile:
New
AstonJ
If you get Can't find emacs in your PATH when trying to install Doom Emacs on your Mac you… just… need to install Emacs first! :lol: bre...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
A concise guide to MySQL 9 database administration, covering fundamental concepts, techniques, and best practices. Neil Smyth MySQL...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Escape callback hell and ship fast, clean code that reads as smoothly as it runs. Squash bugs and stamp out memory leaks with an intuitiv...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Use advanced functional programming principles, practical Domain-Driven Design techniques, and production-ready Elixir code to build scal...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Quickly turn complex problems into simple, working solutions using functional programming, safe concurrency, and the expressive tools of ...
New
CommunityNews
Open-source implementation of the classic GTA engine now running directly in your browser. Experience the reVC technology demo on DOS.Zon...
New

Sub Categories: