Re: Reference source for C-compiler validation?

"Martin von Loewis" <loewis@informatik.hu-berlin.de> wrote
> There are certainly widely-accepted C and C++ test suites. I don't
> think any of them is widely available. Common test suites are
>
> Plum Hall: http://www.plumhall.com/suites.html
> Perennial: http://www.peren.com/pages/cvsa_set.htm
>
> HTH,
> Martin
> [Plum Hall and Perennial's suites are entirely available if you're willing
> to pay for them. -John]


Does anyone have an approximate idea how expensive those are? There is
no information on the websites (at least I couldn't find it) and
didn't dare to e-mail their sales just to satisfy my silly curiosity.


Another question: how effective are these suites? I mean, ANSI C/C++
compliance problems are found in compilers all the time and I would
assume that at least the major vendors can afford to buy the test
suite. Also, are the suites attempting to validate the generated code
- I realize that this is very difficult and probably unrealistic to
expect, but as the initial poster suggested, they could run "an
algorithm with known results so that the validity of the created
executable can be tested". Do you have an idea whether such a test
would be useful in practice at all (beyond the very first stages of
validating a compiler)?


-tzvetan

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