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Source: delta
Section: devel
Maintainer: Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org>
Standards-Version: 4.7.3
Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13), flex
Vcs-Browser: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/delta
Vcs-Git: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/delta.git
Package: delta
Architecture: any
Depends: ${perl:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: heuristic tool to minimize failure-inducing files for debugging
Delta assists you in minimizing "interesting" files subject to a test of
their "interestingness". A common such situation is when attempting to
isolate a small failure-inducing substring of a large input that causes
your program to exhibit a bug.
.
Delta is typically used during debugging and software testing to reduce
large or complex input files into smaller test cases that still reproduce
a specific behavior, such as a crash, incorrect output, or assertion
failure. By repeatedly removing parts of the input and checking whether
the file remains “interesting” (according to a user-supplied test), Delta
helps identify the minimal input needed to trigger the problem.
.
This is especially useful when reporting bugs upstream or in the Debian BTS,
as a minimized test case is easier to analyze, faster to process, and more
likely to be accepted and fixed.
.
Examples of practical use cases:
- Reducing a large input file that crashes a compiler or interpreter to
the smallest file that still crashes it.
- Minimizing a test file generated by a fuzzer so it can be added to a
regression test suite.
- Isolating the exact fragment of a configuration or data file that causes
a program to misbehave.
.
This package provides the following executables: singledelta, multidelta
and topformflat. multidelta performs delta debugging across multiple input
files, minimizing them together while preserving a user-defined
"interesting" condition. topformflat normalizes structured input files into
a flat canonical form (e.g. by removing indentation and layout variations)
for use with delta debugging tools.
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