Differential Coverage for Debugging

a year ago

Differential coverage compares code coverage of passing and failing tests to identify problematic code sections.
The technique involves generating coverage profiles for both passing and failing tests, then diffing them to find unique code paths.
In the example, a bug in `natmul.go` was identified by highlighting code unique to the failing test.
Differential coverage is efficient, pinpointing relevant code sections out of thousands of lines.
The method isn't foolproof but is effective when bugs are failure-triggered.
Basic coverage profiles for single failing tests can also guide debugging by showing executed code paths.
The technique can also be applied to passing tests to identify specific functionalities, like SOCKS5 proxy implementation in `net/http`.

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