rustkas

rustkas

Property-Based Testing with PropEr, Erlang, and Elixir:the order of the elements in the comparison expression(page 53)

I’m wondering why you chose the following sequence in your expression:
Function under test =:= reference expression

prop_biggest() ->
    ?FORALL(List, (list(integer())),
            begin
                biggest(List) =:= lists:last(lists:sort(List))
            end).

EUnit macros using assertEqual(Expect, Expr), whehe EUnit uses the opposite order of items.

biggest_test() ->
 ?assert(5 =:= biggest([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])),
 ?assert(8 =:= biggest([3, 8, 7, -1])),
 ?assert(0 =:= biggest([0])), 
 ?assert(5 =:= biggest([-10, 5, -901])).

I understand that the order of the elements doesn’t matter. When you proposed your order, what were you guided by, what were your motives?

Marked As Solved

ferd

ferd

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

That’s an interesting question. I don’t think it’s a super conscious choice, but I tend to use the order of other assertion macros, where for example the format is ?assertMatch(Pattern, Expression) (this is the only one where it’s very sensitive, otherwise you just get the expected/actual order reversed in a report).

I think this, along with pattern matching generally having the assertion left-side, makes me compare that way. For example, many years ago, before people used EUnit macro in common test, the pattern for assertions would have just been Expected = lists:last(lists:sort(List)), Expected = biggest(List) and then letting the est crash if it’s wrong.

In this case, I appear to have swapped the order with what I generally use or would suggest to use, since the model should be driving the test!

Where Next?

Popular Pragmatic Bookshelf topics Top

brianokken
Many tasks_proj/tests directories exist in chapters 2, 3, 5 that have tests that use the custom markers smoke and get, which are not decl...
New
jdufour
Hello! On page xix of the preface, it says there is a community forum "… for help if your’re stuck on one of the exercises in this book… ...
New
raul
Page 28: It implements io.ReaderAt on the store type. Sorry if it’s a dumb question but was the io.ReaderAt supposed to be io.ReadAt? ...
New
cro
I am working on the “Your Turn” for chapter one and building out the restart button talked about on page 27. It recommends looking into ...
New
leba0495
Hello! Thanks for the great book. I was attempting the Trie (chap 17) exercises and for number 4 the solution provided for the autocorre...
New
curtosis
Running mix deps.get in the sensor_hub directory fails with the following error: ** (Mix) No SSH public keys found in ~/.ssh. An ssh aut...
New
jskubick
I’m under the impression that when the reader gets to page 136 (“View Data with the Database Inspector”), the code SHOULD be able to buil...
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
hazardco
On page 78 the following code appears: <%= link_to ‘Destroy’, product, class: ‘hover:underline’, method: :delete, data: { confirm...
New
dachristenson
@mfazio23 Android Studio will not accept anything I do when trying to use the Transformations class, as described on pp. 140-141. Googl...
New

Other popular topics Top

PragmaticBookshelf
Free and open source software is the default choice for the technologies that run our world, and it’s built and maintained by people like...
New
AstonJ
We’ve talked about his book briefly here but it is quickly becoming obsolete - so he’s decided to create a series of 7 podcasts, the firs...
New
Help
I am trying to crate a game for the Nintendo switch, I wanted to use Java as I am comfortable with that programming language. Can you use...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight Mike Riley @mriley This month, we turn the spotlight on Mike Riley, author of Portable Python Projects. Mike’s book ...
New
New
New
AnfaengerAlex
Hello, I’m a beginner in Android development and I’m facing an issue with my project setup. In my build.gradle.kts file, I have the foll...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Explore the power of Ash Framework by modeling and building the domain for a real-world web application. Rebecca Le @sevenseacat and ...
New
AstonJ
This is a very quick guide, you just need to: Download LM Studio: https://lmstudio.ai/ Click on search Type DeepSeek, then select the o...
New
AstonJ
Curious what kind of results others are getting, I think actually prefer the 7B model to the 32B model, not only is it faster but the qua...
New

Sub Categories: