Expand description
Provides helpful information about testing cove
§Settings
Some of cove’s test battery uses randomized inputs, using a simple full-period LCG as the
randomizer. For each test, a random input is generated, a cast is performed, and the output
is validated. The settings file for these tests is available for editing in
tests/integration/util/settings.rs.
§Random Seed
When cove is tested with std support (the default), the random LCG is seeded from the
system time. Without std, however, there is no source of entropy for seeding; consequently,
when testing without std the tests use a fixed seed which can be manually updated by the
tester. To do so, edit the RANDOM_SEED constant in the settings file.
§Iteration Count
Cove’s random tests are repeated for a number of iterations controlled by the
SLOW_ITERATIONS and FAST_ITERATIONS constants in the settings file.
§Pointer Widths
Cove implements a number of platform-independent casts as well as some which depend on the
size of the platform’s pointer widths (e.g. casts to usize). These pointer-width-specific
casts are implemented for 16, 32, 64, and 128-bit platforms along with corresponding tests.
However, they have only actually been tested on 32 and 64-bit platforms due to a lack of
availability of other platforms during cove’s development.
§Debug vs Release
Cove’s behavior can differ according to whether it is built in debug or release; in particular,
the semantics of the AssumedLossless trait differ in debug
from release. It can therefore be worthwhile testing cove under both configurations.
§Testing no_std
Some of cove’s tests require more complete panic support than is provided by core, and thus
are only implemented on std.
§Doctests
Some of cove’s test battery is implemented via doctests (under src/doctests) specifically to
leverage the fact that doctests support testing for compilation failures.