RE: Generating random WebIDL fragments from grammar

Filed https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=20481


...with this feedback, plus other feedback I was coincidentally going to send today as well :-)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dominique Hazael-Massieux [mailto:dom@w3.org]
> Sent: Friday, December 21, 2012 9:39 AM
> To: public-script-coord@w3.org
> Cc: public-webapps-testsuite@w3.org
> Subject: Generating random WebIDL fragments from grammar
> 
> Hi,
> 
> As a way to test both my WebIDL parser [1] and the WebIDL grammar, I've
> been looking at generating random but valid fragments from the WebIDL
> grammar.
> 
> To that end, I've been using abnfgen:
> http://www.quut.com/abnfgen/

> 
> Since abnfgen only takes ABNF as input, I've written a quick and dirty
> script (attached) that converts the grammar as defined in the WebIDL
> spec (when copied and pasted in a text file) into an ABNF grammar.
> 
> It does mostly syntax conversion from one grammar to the other, although
> it also does a few tweaks in order to generate more useful test cases.
> 
> The grammar that it currently generates is buggy, because the grammar in
> the WebIDL spec is buggy; attached is a ABNF grammar that more closely
> matches what I think WebIDL intends.
> 
> Using that grammar, I can generate a bunch of random WebIDL fragments,
> e.g. with:
>         for i in `seq 1 150` ; do abnfgen webidl.bnf > test$i.idl ; done
> which I then run against my parser:
>         for i in *.idl ;do widlproc $i 1>/dev/null ; done
> 
> This has proved pretty useful in finding bugs in my implementation, as
> well as bugs in the grammar, so I thought I would share it.
> 
> (I've already modified a number of test cases in the widlproc repository
> as a result of this work)
> 
> Dom
> 
> 1. https://github.com/dontcallmedom/widlproc

Received on Friday, 21 December 2012 18:38:14 UTC