A portable APL language test generation and verification system

Abstract

The major tasks that must be performed during development and use of an APL language test system include construction of tests and verification of test results. In addition, it is desirable that a test system be transportable to a variety of APL language implementations, be extensible, and allow easy revalidation of the language implementation. In this paper, we will describe the design, implementation, and use of an extensible, portable, self-verifying APL test system that includes facilities to generate large sets of useful tests with very little effort. The test system is based on a test definition language and on an executable formal definition of the APL language. By careful use of the test system, 150,000 self-verifying language tests were constructed in four man-weeks. Transportability was achieved by using APL as the implementation language for the test system software. The successful use and transportation of this test system demonstrates that it is relatively easy to generate tests for and in the APL language.