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

jamis
The following is cross-posted from the original Ray Tracer Challenge forum, from a post by garfieldnate. I’m cross-posting it so that the...
New
joepstender
The generated iex result below should list products instead of product for the metadata. (page 67) iex> product = %Product{} %Pento....
New
swlaschin
The book has the same “Problem space/Solution space” diagram on page 18 as is on page 17. The correct Problem/Solution space diagrams ar...
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
jonmac
The allprojects block listed on page 245 produces the following error when syncing gradle: “org.gradle.api.GradleScriptException: A prob...
New
creminology
Skimming ahead, much of the following is explained in Chapter 3, but new readers (like me!) will hit a roadblock in Chapter 2 with their ...
New
jwandekoken
Book: Programming Phoenix LiveView, page 142 (157/378), file lib/pento_web/live/product_live/form_component.ex, in the function below: d...
New
tkhobbes
After some hassle, I was able to finally run bin/setup, now I have started the rails server but I get this error message right when I vis...
New
roadbike
From page 13: On Python 3.7, you can install the libraries with pip by running these commands inside a Python venv using Visual Studio ...
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

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
poll poll Be sure to check out @Dusty’s article posted here: An Introduction to Alternative Keyboard Layouts It’s one of the best write-...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Tailwind CSS is an exciting new CSS framework that allows you to design your site by composing simple utility classes to create complex e...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Learn different ways of writing concurrent code in Elixir and increase your application's performance, without sacrificing scalability or...
New
rustkas
Intensively researching Erlang books and additional resources on it, I have found that the topic of using Regular Expressions is either c...
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
New
New
Fl4m3Ph03n1x
Background Lately I am in a quest to find a good quality TTS ai generation tool to run locally in order to create audio for some videos I...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Use advanced functional programming principles, practical Domain-Driven Design techniques, and production-ready Elixir code to build scal...
New

Sub Categories: