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

simonpeter
When I try the command to create a pair of migration files I get an error. user=> (create-migration "guestbook") Execution error (Ill...
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
raul
Hi Travis! Thank you for the cool book! :slight_smile: I made a list of issues and thought I could post them chapter by chapter. I’m rev...
New
jeremyhuiskamp
Title: Web Development with Clojure, Third Edition, vB17.0 (p9) The create table guestbook syntax suggested doesn’t seem to be accepted ...
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
brian-m-ops
#book-python-testing-with-pytest-second-edition Hi. Thanks for writing the book. I am just learning so this might just of been an issue ...
New
brunogirin
When installing Cards as an editable package, I get the following error: ERROR: File “setup.py” not found. Directory cannot be installe...
New
andreheijstek
After running /bin/setup, the first error was: The foreman' command exists in these Ruby versions: That was easy to fix: gem install fore...
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
dachristenson
I’ve got to the end of Ch. 11, and the app runs, with all tabs displaying what they should – at first. After switching around between St...
New

Other popular topics Top

Devtalk
Reading something? Working on something? Planning something? Changing jobs even!? If you’re up for sharing, please let us know what you’...
1052 22171 400
New
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Ruby, Io, Prolog, Scala, Erlang, Clojure, Haskell. With Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, by Bruce A. Tate, you’ll go beyond the syntax—and...
New
Rainer
My first contact with Erlang was about 2 years ago when I used RabbitMQ, which is written in Erlang, for my job. This made me curious and...
New
AstonJ
Saw this on TikTok of all places! :lol: Anyone heard of them before? Lite:
New
Maartz
Hi folks, I don’t know if I saw this here but, here’s a new programming language, called Roc Reminds me a bit of Elm and thus Haskell. ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Rails 7 completely redefines what it means to produce fantastic user experiences and provides a way to achieve all the benefits of single...
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
First poster: bot
zig/http.zig at 7cf2cbb33ef34c1d211135f56d30fe23b6cacd42 · ziglang/zig. General-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaini...
New
New

Sub Categories: