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From: bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Test Suites C++ wanted
Message-ID: <2410@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Date: 28 Mar 90 19:29:39 GMT
References: <57289@oliveb.olivetti.com> <691@halley.UUCP>
Reply-To: bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright)
Organization: Data I/O Corporation; Redmond, WA
Lines: 21

I'd be wary of most compiler test suites. Nearly all that I've looked
at only tested parsing and semantic analysis. Practically *none*
tested things like optimization, aliasing assumptions, code generation,
floating point accuracy, etc.

Another problem I tend to see are tests that only are meant to be
compiled. The tests are not complete enough to actually run.
The following compiler program will 'pass' the test:
	int main() { return 0; }

Things to look for in a test suite are constructs like:

	testadd()
	{	int i1,i2;
		assert(sizeof(i1) == 2);	/* for 16 bit ints */
		i1 = 1;
		i2 = 2;
		assert(i1 + i2 == 3);
		assert(i1 - i2 == -1);
		...
	}