QuickCheck’s CoArbitrary – generate random functions!

Property based testing is a great way to improve code quality since it captures logical properties of your system. Instead of writing test cases by hand, you capture logical relationships and then let the test framework generate hundreds or thousands of examples for you.

For a general introduction to property based testing (language-independent), try this YOW! Night talk Property Based Testing Finding More Bugs with Less Effort by Charles O’Farrell.

QuickCheck provides a typeclass CoArbitrary for generating random functions. In this blog post we derive CoArbitrary in a standalone setting. For the real definition, see Test.QuickCheck. Source code for this post is here.

Some imports:


> {-# LANGUAGE InstanceSigs #-}
> {-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes   #-}
>
> module Sample where
>
> import Control.Applicative
> import System.Random


First, a generator of type Gen a lets us use a random number generator to get a value of type a:


> newtype Gen a = Gen
>     { unGen :: StdGen -> a }


(The real Gen in QuickCheck is parameterised over the generator, but we don’t need that here. Also, the real Gen includes a size, which you can control using resize or scale).

The Arbitrary typeclass:


> class Arbitrary a where
>     arbitrary :: Gen a


Since False < True (there is an instance of Ord for Bool) we can use randomR to define arbitrary for Bool:


> instance Arbitrary Bool where
>     arbitrary = Gen $\stdgen -> > let (r, _) = randomR (False, True) stdgen in r  Here’s a first attempt at implementing Gen (Bool -> Bool), a generator for boolean functions:  > genBoolFn0 :: Gen (Bool -> Bool) > genBoolFn0 = Gen$ \stdgen ->
>   \a -> let (r, _) = randomR (False, True) stdgen in r


The type is right but it’s going to generate pretty boring functions since it doesn’t even use the a:


> runBoolFnGen :: Gen (Bool -> Bool) -> IO ()
> runBoolFnGen g = do
>   fns  <- samples g
>
>   forM_ fns  $\f -> do > putStrLn$ "True  => " ++ show (f True)
>     putStrLn $"False => " ++ show (f False) > putStrLn ""  The functions are either const True or const False. Not useful.  ghci> runBoolFnGen genBoolFn0 True => True False => True True => False False => False True => False False => False True => True False => True True => False False => False True => True False => True True => False False => False True => False False => False True => False False => False We need to split on the a somehow:  > genBoolFn1 :: Gen (Bool -> Bool) > genBoolFn1 = Gen$ \stdgen -> \a -> case a of
>   True  -> let (r, _) = randomR (False, True) stdgen in r
>   False -> let (r, _) = randomR (False, True) stdgen in r


This isn’t any better. The other thing we can change is the generator. Fortunately, StdGen is an instance of RandomGen, so we have the split function:


> -- The split operation allows one to obtain two
> -- distinct random number generators. This is
> -- very useful in functional programs (for example,
> -- when passing a random number generator down to
> -- recursive calls), but very little work has been done
> -- on statistically robust implementations of split
> -- ([System.Random, System.Random] are the only
> -- examples we know of).
>
> split :: StdGen -> (StdGen, StdGen)
> split = ...


Taking advantage of laziness, we can use split to write a pure function that gives us an infinite sequence of statistically distinct generators:


> splitGenerator :: RandomGen a => a -> [a]
> splitGenerator r = r0 : splitGenerator r1
>   where
>     (r0, r1) = split r


This is exactly what we need to permute the generator in genBoolFn1. Let’s map True to the generator at index 0 and False to to the generator at index 1:


> genBoolFn2 :: Gen (Bool -> Bool)
> genBoolFn2 = Gen $\stdgen -> \a -> case a of > True -> let (r, _) = randomR > (False, True) > (splitGenerator stdgen !! 0) > in r > False -> let (r, _) = randomR > (False, True) > (splitGenerator stdgen !! 1) > in r  Now the random functions look more random:  ghci> runBoolFnGen genBoolFn2 True => False False => True True => True False => False True => False False => True True => True False => False True => True False => True True => True False => False True => True False => True True => False False => False True => False False => True So, what about random integer functions Int -> Int? We need to map any integer to one of the split generators, in other words we need a mapping$\mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb Z_{\ge 0}$. Send the non-negative integers to the non-negative even integers, and the negative integers to the positive odd integers: $n \rightarrow \begin{cases} 2n & \mbox{if } n \geq 0 \\ 2(-n) + 1 & \mbox{if } n < 0 \end{cases}$ In Haskell this looks like:  > \n -> variant$ if n >= 0 then 2*n else 2*(-n) + 1


where


> variant :: Int -> Gen b -> Gen b
> variant v (Gen g) = Gen $\r -> g$ splitGenerator r !! (v+1)


Capture this with a typeclass:


> class CoArbitrary a where
>     coarbitrary :: a -> Gen b -> Gen b
>
> instance CoArbitrary Bool where
>   coarbitrary False = variant 0
>   coarbitrary True  = variant 1
>
> instance CoArbitrary Int where
>     coarbitrary n = variant $if n >= 0 then 2*n else 2*(-n) + 1  With some experimentation we can extend the CoArbitrary definitions to lists and tuples:  > instance CoArbitrary a => CoArbitrary [a] where > coarbitrary [] = variant 0 > coarbitrary (x:xs) = variant 1 . coarbitrary (x, xs) > > instance (CoArbitrary a, CoArbitrary b) => CoArbitrary (a, b) where > coarbitrary (x, y) = coarbitrary x . coarbitrary y  In general, if we have CoArbitrary a and Arbitrary b then we can derive Arbitrary (a -> b):  > instance (CoArbitrary a, Arbitrary b) => Arbitrary (a -> b) where > arbitrary = promote (\a -> coarbitrary a arbitrary) > > promote :: (a -> Gen b) -> (Gen (a->b)) > promote f = Gen$ \r ->
>   \a -> let Gen h = f a
>          in h r


Here are more examples of random functions:


> runGenFn :: (Arbitrary a, Arbitrary b, Show a, Show b)
>          => Gen (a -> b)
>          -> [a]
>          -> IO ()
> runGenFn g as = do
>   fns  <- samples g
>
>   forM_ fns  $\f -> do > forM_ as$ \a -> putStrLn $show a ++ " => " > ++ show (f a) > putStrLn ""  Running in ghci:  ghci> runGenFn (arbitrary :: Gen (Int -> Int)) [0, 1, 2] 0 => 198 1 => 940 2 => -200 0 => 734 1 => -627 2 => 6 0 => 965 1 => 581 2 => -585 0 => -306 1 => -918 2 => 678 0 => -929 1 => 336 2 => -696 0 => -66 1 => 123 2 => 875 0 => -234 1 => -673 2 => 216 0 => 355 1 => 56 2 => -615 0 => 278 1 => 116 2 => 967 ghci> runGenFn (arbitrary :: Gen (Int -> Bool)) [0, 1, 2] 0 => False 1 => True 2 => False 0 => True 1 => False 2 => True 0 => True 1 => False 2 => False 0 => True 1 => False 2 => False 0 => True 1 => True 2 => True 0 => True 1 => True 2 => False 0 => False 1 => True 2 => False 0 => True 1 => True 2 => False 0 => True 1 => True 2 => True ghci> runGenFn (arbitrary :: Gen ([Int] -> [Int])) [[42], [0, 1, 2]] [42] => [-93,-540,-715,-557,-249] [0,1,2] => [433,97,665,554,-690,635] [42] => [-785,174,-676,-662,-549] [0,1,2] => [-735,-328,226,-524,423] [42] => [157,976,-774] [0,1,2] => [-197,608,-520,-37,-689] [42] => [-684] [0,1,2] => [902,-138,-33,689,-774,-713,474,-638] [42] => [-782,540,649,320,-326,92,896,-76] [0,1,2] => [156] [42] => [524,137] [0,1,2] => [642,-763,771,-400,825,71,895,586,252,37] [42] => [641,-304,-890,-375,449,-608,662,546,-740,-406] [0,1,2] => [-632,-685,-232,202,-994,666,-121] [42] => [200,599,-844] [0,1,2] => [-554,149,370,547,-755,-706,131] [42] => [-898,645,-472] [0,1,2] => [-77] Appendix To get the code above to work we need instances for Monad, Functor, and Applicative. These are all lifted from Test.QuickCheck.  > instance Monad Gen where > return :: a -> Gen a > return a = Gen$ \_ -> a
>
>     (>>=) :: Gen a -> (a -> Gen b) -> Gen b
>
>     (Gen g) >>= f = Gen $\r -> > let (r1, r2) = split r > Gen k = f$ g r1
>         in k r2
>
> instance Functor Gen where
>     fmap f (Gen h) = Gen $\r -> f (h r) > > instance Applicative Gen where > pure x = Gen$ \_ -> x
>
>     f <*> x = do
>         f' <- f
>         x' <- x
>         return $f' x' > > generate :: Gen a -> IO a > generate (Gen g) = do > stdgen <- getStdGen > return$ g stdgen


Use sequence to get a few samples. Note that this relies on the Applicative instance’s definition of <*> to get a new standard number generator each time it is used, which in turn uses the Monad instance’s definition which uses split.


> samples :: Gen a -> IO [a]
> samples g = generate $sequence [g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g, g]   > instance Arbitrary Int where > arbitrary = Gen$ \stdgen ->
>     let (r, _) = randomR (-1000, 1000) stdgen in r
>
> choose :: Random a => (a,a) -> Gen a
> choose range = Gen \$ \stdgen ->
>   let (r, _) = randomR range stdgen in r
>
> vectorOf :: Int -> Gen a -> Gen [a]
> vectorOf = replicateM
>
> listOf :: Gen a -> Gen [a]
> listOf g = do
>   k <- choose (1, 10)
>   vectorOf k g
>
> instance Arbitrary a => Arbitrary [a] where
>   arbitrary = listOf arbitrary