Testing and debugging functional reactive programming
Many types of interactive applications, including video games, raise particular challenges when it comes to testing and debugging. Reasons include de-facto lack of reproducibility and difficulties of automatically generating suitable test data. This paper demonstrates that certain variants of Functi...
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| Format: | Article |
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Association for Computing Machinery
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43953/ |
| _version_ | 1848796804830724096 |
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| author | Perez, Ivan Nilsson, Henrik |
| author_facet | Perez, Ivan Nilsson, Henrik |
| author_sort | Perez, Ivan |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Many types of interactive applications, including video games, raise particular challenges when it comes to testing and debugging. Reasons include de-facto lack of reproducibility and difficulties of automatically generating suitable test data. This paper demonstrates that certain variants of Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) implemented in pure functional languages can mitigate such difficulties by offering referential transparency at the level of whole programs. This opens up for a multi-pronged approach for assisting with testing and debugging that works across platforms, including assertions based on temporal logic, recording and replaying of runs (also from deployed code), and automated random testing using QuickCheck. The approach has been validated on real, non-trivial games implemented in the FRP system Yampa through a tool providing a convenient Graphical User Interface that allows the execution of the code under scrutiny to be controlled, moving along the execution time line, and pin-pointing of violations of assertions on PCs as well as mobile platforms. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:53:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-43953 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:53:48Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-439532020-05-04T19:03:46Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43953/ Testing and debugging functional reactive programming Perez, Ivan Nilsson, Henrik Many types of interactive applications, including video games, raise particular challenges when it comes to testing and debugging. Reasons include de-facto lack of reproducibility and difficulties of automatically generating suitable test data. This paper demonstrates that certain variants of Functional Reactive Programming (FRP) implemented in pure functional languages can mitigate such difficulties by offering referential transparency at the level of whole programs. This opens up for a multi-pronged approach for assisting with testing and debugging that works across platforms, including assertions based on temporal logic, recording and replaying of runs (also from deployed code), and automated random testing using QuickCheck. The approach has been validated on real, non-trivial games implemented in the FRP system Yampa through a tool providing a convenient Graphical User Interface that allows the execution of the code under scrutiny to be controlled, moving along the execution time line, and pin-pointing of violations of assertions on PCs as well as mobile platforms. Association for Computing Machinery 2017-09-01 Article PeerReviewed Perez, Ivan and Nilsson, Henrik (2017) Testing and debugging functional reactive programming. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages, 1 (1). 2/1-2/27. ISSN 2475-1421 Functional Reactive Programming Game programming Testing Debugging Temporal logic https://doi.org/10.1145/3110246 doi:10.1145/3110246 doi:10.1145/3110246 |
| spellingShingle | Functional Reactive Programming Game programming Testing Debugging Temporal logic Perez, Ivan Nilsson, Henrik Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title | Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title_full | Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title_fullStr | Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title_full_unstemmed | Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title_short | Testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| title_sort | testing and debugging functional reactive programming |
| topic | Functional Reactive Programming Game programming Testing Debugging Temporal logic |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43953/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43953/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/43953/ |