[pycrypto] Issue with the new random.choice() unit test

Thorsten Behrens sbehrens at gmx.li
Tue Jan 4 14:40:18 CST 2011


I have introduced a unit test in test_random.py that has too high a rate 
of failure. Specifically, this:

         # Test choice
         seq = []
         for i in range(500): # seed the sequence
             seq[i:] = [random.getrandbits(32)]
         x = random.choice(seq)
         y = random.choice(seq)
         self.assertNotEqual(x, y)

just produced a FAIL:

FAIL: runTest (Crypto.SelfTest.Random.test_random.SimpleTest)
Crypto.Random.new()
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "build\lib.win-amd64-2.7\Crypto\SelfTest\Random\test_random.py", 
line 103, in runTest
     self.assertNotEqual(x, y)
AssertionError: 1793595220L == 1793595220L


Well darn. I guess saying "hey it's a 1 in 500 chance, it'll never 
fail!" is indeed naive. What would be a less naive test, then? I am 
thinking seeding a much smaller seq, and then running choice many times, 
counting collisions each time, and getting some form of expected value 
with an expected precision from that. It's been very long since I've 
done stochastic stuff, however. Before I screw this up further: Concrete 
suggestions on how to fix this unit test?

Thanks!
Thorsten



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