Short intro to QuickCheck

1. Write a function

let ``the reverse of reverse of a list is the list itself`` =
    fun input -> input |> List.rev |> List.rev = input

Here’s what that function does, in steps:

// Takes a list of integers as input
[1, 2, 3]

// Reverses the list
[3, 2, 1]

// Reverses the list again
[1, 2, 3]

// Returns true if the initial list equals the final one
[1, 2, 3] = [1, 2, 3]

True

2. Generate random input

Given a hypothetical Gen module, we can do something like this:

let generator = Gen.int |> Gen.list
// val generator : Gen<int list>

This is a generator for values of type int list¹. If we run it, it’ll generate values like these:

[], [7], [34, -5, 3]

3. Pass that random input to that function

Now, we need a way to pass each one of these generated values to our function, and report back success or failure²: essentially, that’s what QuickCheck does.