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Which one of these bugs would have been prevented by unit tests? Probably none, because you'd have to know about the bug in order to craft a test that exploits

by clarry 7y ago

Which one of these bugs would have been prevented by unit tests? Probably none, because you'd have to know about the bug in order to craft a test that exploits it.

sildur 7y ago
Unit tests could prevent reintroducing old bugs.
- clarry 7y ago
  You have regression tests for those. http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/regress/ http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/src/regress/
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- loeg 7y ago
  This subcategory of unit tests is known as regression tests, and those exist too.
st3fan 7y ago
Sometimes that is definitely true. But very often when you spend time to write unit tests you discover limitations and bugs in your code while you come up with test scenarios. The only thing that the FTP bug needed was a "test_redirect_responses()" test. The SMTPd bug was all about parsing user input. Ideal candidate for unit testing and probably even some fuzzing.
- Someone 7y ago
  FTP doesn’t have redirect, so the original code wouldn’t have that test. The writers who added handling of HTTP would only have added it if they had realized the HTTP library they used could do a redirect. Even if they did, they would have to have thought about redirecting to some specially crafted URL.
  - st3fan 7y ago
    Excuses excuses excuses ...