2020-10-25 22:43:57

by Rasmus Villemoes

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH 0/4] deterministic random testing

This is a bit of a mixed bag.

The background is that I have some sort() and list_sort() rework
planned, but as part of that series I want to extend their their test
suites somewhat to make sure I don't goof up - and I want to use lots
of random list lengths with random contents to increase the chance of
somebody eventually hitting "hey, sort() is broken when the length is
3 less than a power of 2 and only the last two elements are out of
order". But when such a case is hit, it's vitally important that the
developer can reproduce the exact same test case, which means using a
deterministic sequence of random numbers.

Since Petr noticed [1] the non-determinism in test_printf in
connection with Arpitha's work on rewriting it to kunit, this prompted
me to use test_printf as a first place to apply that principle, and
get the infrastructure in place that will avoid repeating the "module
parameter/seed the rnd_state/report the seed used" boilerplate in each
module.

Shuah, assuming the kselftest_module.h changes are ok, I think it's
most natural if you carry these patches, though I'd be happy with any
other route as well.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20200821113710.GA26290@alley/


Rasmus Villemoes (4):
prandom.h: add *_state variant of prandom_u32_max
kselftest_module.h: unconditionally expand the KSTM_MODULE_GLOBALS()
macro
kselftest_module.h: add struct rnd_state and seed parameter
lib/test_printf.c: use deterministic sequence of random numbers

Documentation/dev-tools/kselftest.rst | 2 --
include/linux/prandom.h | 29 ++++++++++++++++
lib/test_bitmap.c | 3 --
lib/test_printf.c | 13 ++++---
lib/test_strscpy.c | 2 --
tools/testing/selftests/kselftest_module.h | 40 ++++++++++++++++++----
6 files changed, 72 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

--
2.23.0


2020-10-30 13:02:30

by Rasmus Villemoes

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/4] deterministic random testing

On 26/10/2020 11.59, Andy Shevchenko wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 25, 2020 at 10:48:38PM +0100, Rasmus Villemoes wrote:
>> This is a bit of a mixed bag.
>>
>> The background is that I have some sort() and list_sort() rework
>> planned, but as part of that series I want to extend their their test
>> suites somewhat to make sure I don't goof up - and I want to use lots
>> of random list lengths with random contents to increase the chance of
>> somebody eventually hitting "hey, sort() is broken when the length is
>> 3 less than a power of 2 and only the last two elements are out of
>> order". But when such a case is hit, it's vitally important that the
>> developer can reproduce the exact same test case, which means using a
>> deterministic sequence of random numbers.
>>
>> Since Petr noticed [1] the non-determinism in test_printf in
>> connection with Arpitha's work on rewriting it to kunit, this prompted
>> me to use test_printf as a first place to apply that principle, and
>> get the infrastructure in place that will avoid repeating the "module
>> parameter/seed the rnd_state/report the seed used" boilerplate in each
>> module.
>>
>> Shuah, assuming the kselftest_module.h changes are ok, I think it's
>> most natural if you carry these patches, though I'd be happy with any
>> other route as well.
>
> Completely in favour of this.
>
> Reviewed-by: Andy Shevchenko <[email protected]>

Thanks.

> One note though. AFAIU the global variables are always being used in the
> modules that include the corresponding header. Otherwise we might have an extra
> warning(s). I believe you have compiled with W=1 to exclude other cases.

Yes, I unconditionally define the two new variables. gcc doesn't warn
about them being unused, since they are referenced from inside a

if (0) {}

block. And when those references are the only ones, gcc is smart enough
to elide the static variables completely, so they don't even take up
space in .data (or .init.data) - you can verify by running nm on
test_printf.o and test_bitmap.o - the former has 'seed' and 'rnd_state'
symbols, the latter does not.

I did it that way to reduce the need for explicit preprocessor
conditionals inside C functions.

Rasmus