Skip to main content
Log in

Improving test coverage of LAPACK

  • Published:
Applicable Algebra in Engineering, Communication and Computing Aims and scope

Abstract

We discuss the way in which the Lapack version 3.0 suite of software is tested and look at how the application of software testing metrics affects our view of that testing. We analyse the ways in which some errors may be masked by the existing approach and consider how we might use the existing suite to generate an alternative test suite that is easily extensible as well as providing a high degree of confidence that the package has been well tested.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Anderson, E., Bai, Z., Bischof, C., Blackford, S., Demmel, J., Dongarra, J.J., Du Croz, J., Greenbaum, A., Hammarling, S., McKenney, A., Sorensen, D.: LAPACKusers’ guide. SIAM, Philadelphia, 3rd edn. (1999)

  2. Barker, V.A., Blackford, L.S., Dongarra, J., Du Croz, J., Hammarling, S., Marinova, M., Waśniewski, J., Yalamov, P.: LAPACK95: Users’ Guide. SIAM, Philadelphia (2001)

  3. Barnes, D., Hopkins, T.: Applying software testing metrics to Lapack. In: Dongarra, J., Madsen, K., Wasniewski, J. (eds.) Applied Parallel Computing. State of the Art in Scientific Computing: 7th International Conference, PARA 2004, Lyngby, Denmark, 20–23, June 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3732, pp. 228–236. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)

  4. Barnes, D.J., Hopkins, T.R.: The evolution and testing of a medium sized numerical package. In: Langtangen, H.P., Bruaset, A.M., Quak, E. (eds.) Advances in Software Tools for Scientific Computing, Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, pp. 225–238. Springer, Berlin (2000)

  5. Beizer B. (1984). Software System Testing and Quality Assurance. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York

    Google Scholar 

  6. Blackford, S., Dongarra, J.: Lapack working note 41 Installation guide for LAPACK. Technical report, University of Tennessee, Department of Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, pp. 37996–371301 (1999)

  7. Gunnels J.A., Gustavson F.G., Henry G.M. and van de Geijn R.A. (2001). Flame: formal linear algebra methods environment. ACM Trans. Math. Softw. 27(4): 422–455

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Hayhurst, K.J., Veerhusen, D.S., Chilenski, J.J., Rierson, L.K.: A practical tutorial on modified condition/decision coverage. Technical Report TM-2001-210876, NASA, Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia 23681–2199 (2001)

  9. Hopkins T. (2002). A comment on the presentation and testing of CALGO codes and a remark on Algorithm 639: To integrate some infinite oscillating tails. ACM Trans. Math. Softw. 28(3): 285–300

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  10. ISO, Geneva, Switzerland: ISO/IEC 9899:1990 Information technology—Programming Language C (1990)

  11. ISO/IEC: Information Technology—Programming Languages—Fortran—Part 1: Base Language (ISO/IEC 1539-1:2004). ISO/IEC Copyright Office, Geneva (2004)

  12. Kaner C., Falk J. and Nguyen H.Q. (1999). Testing Computer Software. Wiley, Chichester

    Google Scholar 

  13. King K.N. and Offutt A.J. (1991). A Fortran language system for mutation-based software testing. Softw. Pract. Exp. 21(7): 685–718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Lahey Computer Systems, Inc., Incline Village, NV, USA: Lahey/Fujitsu Fortran 95 User’s Guide, Revision C edition (2000)

  15. LDRA Ltd, Liverpool, UK: LDRA Testbed: Technical Description v7.0 (2000)

  16. Lutz, M.: Programming Python, 2nd edn. O’Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol (2001)

  17. Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd., Oxford, UK: NAGWare Fortran Tools (Release 4.0) (1999)

  18. Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd., Oxford, UK: NAGWare Fortran Tools (Release 4.1) (2001)

  19. Numerical Algorithms Group Ltd., Oxford, UK: NAGWare f95 Compiler (Release 5.0) (2003)

  20. Offut A.J., Lee A., Rothermel G., Untch R.H. and Zapf C. (1996). An experimental determination of sufficient mutant operators. ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Meth. 5(2): 99–118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Sun Microsystems, Inc., Santa Clara, CA: Fortran User’s Guide (Forte Developer 7), Revision A edition (2002)

  22. Wall, L., Christiansen, T., Orwant, J.: Programming Perl. 3rd edn. O’Reilly & Associates, Inc, Sebastopol (2000)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David J. Barnes.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Barnes, D.J., Hopkins, T.R. Improving test coverage of LAPACK. AAECC 18, 209–222 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00200-007-0034-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00200-007-0034-0

Keywords

Navigation