DustMite, a D test case minimization tool

[Vladimir Panteleev]

Inspired by Tigris Delta and the "Want to help DMD bugfixing? Write a  
simple utility" thread from digitalmars.D.learn. I hope the DMD  
development team will find this useful.

Advantages over Tigris delta:

* Easy to use (takes only two arguments, no need to fiddle with levels)
* Readable output (comments and indentation are preserved)
* Native support for multiple files (accepts a path to an entire directory  
for input)
* Written for D
* Written in D
* Not written in Perl
* Can recognize constructs such as try/catch, function invariants  
(in/out/body)
* Only 440 lines of source code

If you've never used delta: this is a tool which attempts to shrink files  
by deleting fragments iteratively, as long as the file satisfies a  
user-specified condition (for example, a specific error message when  
passed through the compiler).

Usage:

1. Formulate a condition command, which should exit with a status code of  
0 when DustMite is on the right track, and anything else otherwise.
    Example: dmd test.d 2>&1 | grep -qF "Assertion failed"
2. Place all the files that dustmite is to minimize in a new directory.
3. If you'd like to test your condition command, don't forget to clean up  
temporary files afterwards.
4. Run: dustmite path/to/directory test-command
5. After a while, dustmite will finish working and create  
path/to/directory.reduced

I've tested it with a self-induced "bug" in std.datetime, it seems to work  
great. If you find that it breaks on something, let me know.

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DustMite

-- 
Best regards,
  Vladimir                            mailto:vladimir at thecybershadow.net