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Quviq's eqc-rebar

A rebar plugin for using Quviq's Erlang QuickCheck (eqc) in rebar3 projects.

This plugin is a re-design of earlier useful plugins for compiling and running eqc properties:

Use

Add the plugin to your rebar configof an existing application:

{plugins, [
    {eqc_rebar, {git, "https://github.com/Quviq/eqc-rebar.git", {branch, "master"}}}
]}.

Create an eqc directory in the same way as you have a src and test directory and keep you properties and generators in that eqc directory.

Then just call your plugin directly in this top-level application directory:

$ rebar3 eqc
===> Fetching eqc_rebar
===> Compiling eqc_rebar
<Plugin Output>

All properties will be extracted and checked with QuickCheck. You need a QuickCheck licence for it and eqc-1.44.1 or higher installed.

EQC environment

The plugin will compile files in src and eqc directory (decending into apps directories). During compilation, the EQC macro is defined, in other words, the erlang compiler option {d, EQC} is automatically specified.

If an eqc profile is defined in the rebar.config file, then additional settings in this profile will be used.

After compilation, all QuickCheck properties found are checked with Quviq's quickcheck. The total testing time is by default 20 seconds and can be adjusted by the testing_budget option. The budget is devided equally over the number of modules provided.

Other users of your repository, not having a licence, can use your software, but cannot check the properties. The eqc directory can be ignored by them.

Directory structure

We recommend to put QuickCheck properties in the eqc directory. In that way one does not interfere with any other testing tool. These properties will be picked up by the plugin and checked.

If one would like to verify eunit tests, common test tests and eqc properties, then running these in sequence is perfectly valid:

rebar3 do eunit, eqc --testing_budget 120, ct

Look in the rebar3 documentation to see how aliases can be created to support this in one command.

(todo: getting combined coverage)

The test profile is not selected by default. That means that the macro TEST is not defined by the eqc_rebar plugin, neither are files in the test directory compiled.

Properties in test directory

One can add the test profile to combine tests and quickcheck. In this case the active profile will be test+eqc in which files in both the test and the eqc directory are compiled with the macros TEST and EQC both defined.

rebar3 as test eqc

Note that this command checks the properties defined in both test and eqc directories, but it does not run the unit tests. In this context eqc is the command not the profile.

Unit tests should be run with rebar3 eunit and if you have added quickcheck tests in the test directory that are called from within a test:

many_test() ->
  eqc:quickcheck(prop_many()).

then one normally would us -ifdef(EQC) ... -endif. it to exclude these tests for people not having a licence. Add {d, 'EQC'} to the erl_opts in an eqc profile in rebar.config to make it work with eunit.

rebar3 as eqc eunit

Properties in src directory

Properties in the source code are automatically detected by the plugin and checked by QuickCheck. It is not advised to add properties to source code, this creates a dependency between a distribution and quickcheck, which would be totally unnecessary.

Integration testing

In the case of several Apps in a repository, using the apps/App/* directory structure, one often wants to define integration tests for the combination of these Apps. These tests are typically placed in the root level in testor, in the case of this plugin, in the top level eqc directory for properties. By not defining the macro TEST by default, the QuickCheck properties can be verified for the actual released software that should not export functions that one may have -ifdef-ed using the TEST macro.

Working in Erlang shell

One can run a shell with quickcheck compiled code by providing the shell option.

rebar3 eqc --shell

This differs from rebar3 do eqc, shell by the fact that the latter first checks all properties and then provides an Erlang shell.

EQC options

--pulse

TODO

  • apps/App/src projects does not add apps in library when compiling toplevel eqc
  • rebar3 as test eqc seems to create .beam files in test directory, most likely need to add test to src_dirs when test profile chosen
  • rebar3 do eqc, eunit versus rebar3 do eqc eunit
  • distribution: --name, --sname
  • explain all options and get pulse to run