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Using Property-Based Testing to Generate Feedback for C Programming Exercises

Authors Pedro Vasconcelos , Rita P. Ribeiro

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Author Details

Pedro Vasconcelos
  • Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, University of Porto, Portugal
  • LIACC, Porto, Portugal
Rita P. Ribeiro
  • Computer Science Department, Faculty of Science, University of Porto, Portugal
  • LIAAD-INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal

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Pedro Vasconcelos and Rita P. Ribeiro. Using Property-Based Testing to Generate Feedback for C Programming Exercises. In First International Computer Programming Education Conference (ICPEC 2020). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 81, pp. 28:1-28:10, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020) https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.ICPEC.2020.28

Abstract

This paper reports on the use of property-based testing for providing feedback to C programming exercises. Test cases are generated automatically from properties specified in a test script; this not only makes it possible to conduct many tests (thus potentially find more mistakes), but also allows simplifying failed tests cases automatically.
We present some experimental validation gathered for an introductory C programming course during the fall semester of 2018 that show significant positive correlations between getting feedback during the semester and the student’s results in the final exam. We also discuss some limitations regarding feedback for undefined behaviors in the C language.

Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Social and professional topics → Student assessment
  • Software and its engineering → Software testing and debugging
  • Software and its engineering → Domain specific languages
Keywords
  • property-based testing
  • C language
  • Haskell language
  • teaching programming

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