6 Generating Random Mutators

This PLAI library provides a facility for generating random mutators, in order to test your garbage collection implementation.

procedure
(save-random-mutator file
collector-name
[ #:heap-values heap-values
#:iterations iterations
#:program-size program-size
#:heap-size heap-size
#:gc2? gc2?]) → void?
  file : path-string?
  collector-name : string?
   heap-values : (cons heap-value? (listof heap-value?))
= (list 0 1 -1 'x 'y #f #t '())
  iterations : exact-positive-integer? = 200
  program-size : exact-positive-integer? = 10
  heap-size : exact-positive-integer? = 100
  gc2? : boolean? = #f

Creates a random mutator that uses the collector collector-name and saves it in file.

The mutator is created by first making a random graph whose nodes either have no outgoing edges, two outgoing edges, or some random number of outgoing edges and then picking a random path in the graph that ends at one of the nodes with no edges.

This graph and path are then turned into a PLAI program by creating a let expression that binds one variable per node in the graph. If the node has no outgoing edges, it is bound to a heap-value?. If the node has two outgoing edges, it is bound to a pair and the two edges are put into the first and rest fields. Otherwise, the node is represented as a procedure that accepts an integer index and returns the destination node of the corresponding edge.

Once the let expression has been created, the program creates a bunch of garbage and then traverses the graph, according to the randomly created path. If the result of the path is the expected heap value, the program does this again, up to iterations times. If the result of the path is not the expected heap value, the program terminates with an error.

The keyword arguments control some aspects of the generation of random mutators:

Elements from the heap-values argument are used as the base values when creating nodes with no outgoing edges. See also find-heap-values.
The iterations argument controls how many times the graph is created (and traversed).
The program-size argument is a bound on how big the program it is; it limits the number of nodes, the maximum number of edges, and the length of the path in the graph.
The heap-size argument controls the size of the heap in the generated mutator.

Example:

(save-random-mutator "tmp.rkt" "mygc.rkt" #:gc2? #t)

will write to "tmp.rkt" with a program like this one:

#lang plai/gc2/mutator
(allocator-setup "mygc.rkt" 200)
(define (build-one)
  (let* ((x0 1)
         (x1 (cons #f #f))
         (x2
          (lambda (x)
            (if (= x 0)
              x0
              (if (= x 1) x0 (if (= x 2) x1 (if (= x 3) x1 x0))))))
         (x3 1)
         (x4 (cons x3 x3))
         (x5 (lambda (x) (if (= x 0) x4 (if (= x 1) x1 x2)))))
    (set-first! x1 x2)
    (set-rest! x1 x3)
    x5))
(define (traverse-one x5) (= 1 (first (x5 0))))
(define (trigger-gc n)
  (if (zero? n) 0 (begin (cons n n) (trigger-gc (- n 1)))))
(define (loop i)
  (if (zero? i)
    'passed
    (let ((obj (build-one)))
      (trigger-gc 200)
      (if (traverse-one obj) (loop (- i 1)) 'failed))))
(loop 200)

procedure
(find-heap-values input) → (listof heap-value?)
input : (or/c path-string? input-port?)

Processes input looking for occurrences of heap-value?s in the source of the program and returns them. This makes a good start for the heap-values argument to save-random-mutator.

If input is a port, its contents are assumed to be a well-formed PLAI program. If input is a file, the contents of the file are used.

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1	PLAI Scheme
2	GC Collector Scheme
3	GC Mutator Scheme
4	GC Collector Language, 2
5	GC Mutator Language, 2
6	Generating Random Mutators
7	Web Application Scheme