Re: Some comments on the ansi test suite

On Mon, Jul 08, 2002 at 12:26:38PM -0400, Raymond Toy wrote:
> 
> I've run the ansi test suite for the first time and have a few
> questions about the various tests.

Good. Notice that I don't claim the test is perfect. Far from it.

> o What is the purpose of the character name tests
>   (CHARACTERS-WITHOUT-GOOD-NAMES)?  Are names required for all of the
>   possible characters?  I couldn't find anything that says so.

See (on a debian machine):
file:///usr/share/doc/hyperspec/Body/26_glo_n.htm#name
(go to 13.1.7 in the hyperspec and click on names)

name
...
   5. n. (of a character) a string that names the character and that has
   length greater than one. (All non-graphic characters are required to
   have names unless they have some implementation-defined attribute
   which is not null. Whether or not other characters have names is
   implementation-dependent.) 
   
as (code-char 65) doesn't have a name I fear we break the standard, not?

> o What is ALLTEST-LEGACY- 1045, 1061, and 1073 testing?  These fail
>   for me on CMUCL/Sparc, but presumably work on x86.  So what is being
>   tested?  That it computes those functions correctly?

These are part of the less useful history of ansi-test. It came from an
implementation that seems to have had its share of numeric bugs. So
there are a lot of simple tests like this. Of course they fall on their
face the moment you change fp format... 

> o ALLTEST-EQUALP-STRING-HASH isn't ANSI (uses :initial-contents
>   keyword to make-hash-talbe)  (Already marked as a bug).

Correct. It's on the to-do stack. 

> o ALLTEST-LEGACY-1666 examines the printed value of
>   most-positive-double-float.  What is the purpose of the test?  That
>   it can print it out?  That it prints it out correctly?

I suppose both. The value of tests like that is pretty low. However
think about the 
* (/ 1 (/ 3 2) 0)

1/0

bug in cmucl...

In short: please commit fixes (with comments as to why) if you have the
time and inclination.

Groetjes, Peter

-- 
It's logic Jim, but not as we know it. | [email protected]
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr|
"God is more forgiving." - Dave Aronson| http://cvs2.cons.org/~pvaneynd/


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