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

jesse050717
Title: Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition, pg 116 Hi - I just started chapter 5 and I am stuck on page 116 while trying to star...
New
mikecargal
Title: Hands-On Rust (Chapter 11: prefab) Just played a couple of amulet-less games. With a bit of debugging, I believe that your can_p...
New
herminiotorres
Hi @Margaret , On page VII the book tells us the example and snippets will be all using Elixir version 1.11 But on page 3 almost the en...
New
Mmm
Hi, build fails on: bracket-lib = “~0.8.1” when running on Mac Mini M1 Rust version 1.5.0: Compiling winit v0.22.2 error[E0308]: mi...
New
rmurray10127
Title: Intuitive Python: docker run… denied error (page 2) Attempted to run the docker command in both CLI and Powershell PS C:\Users\r...
New
hgkjshegfskef
The test is as follows: Scenario: Intersecting a scaled sphere with a ray Given r ← ray(point(0, 0, -5), vector(0, 0, 1)) And s ← sphere...
New
taguniversalmachine
It seems the second code snippet is missing the code to set the current_user: current_user: Accounts.get_user_by_session_token(session["...
New
kolossal
Hi, I need some help, I’m new to rust and was learning through your book. but I got stuck at the last stage of distribution. Whenever I t...
New
a.zampa
@mfazio23 I’m following the indications of the book and arriver ad chapter 10, but the app cannot be compiled due to an error in the Bas...
New
dachristenson
I just bought this book to learn about Android development, and I’m already running into a major issue in Ch. 1, p. 20: “Update activity...
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Learn from the award-winning programming series that inspired the Elixir language, and go on a step-by-step journey through the most impo...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Rust is an exciting new programming language combining the power of C with memory safety, fearless concurrency, and productivity boosters...
New
dimitarvp
Small essay with thoughts on macOS vs. Linux: I know @Exadra37 is just waiting around the corner to scream at me “I TOLD YOU SO!!!” but I...
New
Exadra37
I am asking for any distro that only has the bare-bones to be able to get a shell in the server and then just install the packages as we ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Build highly interactive applications without ever leaving Elixir, the way the experts do. Let LiveView take care of performance, scalabi...
New
AstonJ
Continuing the discussion from Thinking about learning Crystal, let’s discuss - I was wondering which languages don’t GC - maybe we can c...
New
AstonJ
Saw this on TikTok of all places! :lol: Anyone heard of them before? Lite:
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight Jamis Buck @jamis This month, we have the pleasure of spotlighting author Jamis Buck, who has written Mazes for Prog...
New
First poster: AstonJ
Jan | Rethink the Computer. Jan turns your computer into an AI machine by running LLMs locally on your computer. It’s a privacy-focus, l...
New
AstonJ
If you’re getting errors like this: psql: error: connection to server on socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432” failed: No such file or directory ...
New

Sub Categories: