Quality Code: Software Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns

Statistical Verification

The sporadic nature of race conditions sometimes defies strictly deterministic reproduction. However, many factors contribute to the occurrence of race conditions, including load, frequency, transactional volume, and timing. When explicit control eludes you, these factors become your friends.

Statistical verification works best at coarser granularities of testing, such as system and integration tests. It can be applied effectively at lower levels as well, but oftentimes, the exact conditions contributing to the race condition are harder to isolate and reproduce. At times, the integrated system produces interactions and timings that evade our ability to diagnose and reproduce. Additionally, coarser-granularity test beds ...