| layout | post |
|---|---|
| title | Smart combinators for test data generation |
| authors | Haoyuan |
| date | 2018-08-17 10:00:00 +0800 |
| venue | CB 313 |
| categories | Haoyuan 2018 |
Recent years have observed the prosperity of a branch from programming language area, called test data generation. It is widely used, for example, in the design of compilers for property-based testing. As a representative, Quickcheck is a well-known Haskell library. It provides a framework for users to test properties, where users are allowed to define customized random generators. However, as far as we are concerned, existing tools have not taken extensibility of data generators into consideration. They may have workarounds, though the extensibility problem is already troublesome in functional languages like Haskell.
This talk is based on the case study of our work on modular unfolds. However, the connection to the theoretical part is omitted, and this work is presented more in a practical view. It is interesting to understand generators by coalgebras and unfolds, moreover, combinators are not only designed for extensibility, but they also need to represent various strategies, making the library more flexible.