Fuzzing R

Pierre Donat-Bouillud
Last updated on 17 Apr 2023 Programming language
Code

R is a vector-oriented, dynamic language, mostly used in data-science. It is difficult to statically analyze, and so we mainly use dynamic techniques to gather insights about R programs. One instance of them is fuzzing.

We do not use fuzzing in R only to find bugs1 but also to dynamically infer type signatures, or other interesting properties of R programs.

  1. Although we also have found plenty of them! ↩︎

R Programming language Fuzzing
Pierre Donat-Bouillud
Pierre Donat-Bouillud
Researcher

My research interests including programming languages, fuzzing and testing.

Related

Posts

Finding NA in serialized R values
In a previous post, I explained how to test a C++ function, find_na, used in a database for R values. find_na checks if NA is present or not in a previously serialized R value.
Pierre Donat-Bouillud
Last updated on 17 Apr 2023 4 min read Programming Languages, Short
Project
Testing C++ Code in R Packages
When you write a package in R, you probably write tests. A popular package for unit tests with R is testthat,1 with the final invocation: devtools::test() If your package also includes native code, let’s say, C++, you can test it by testing the R API that exercises the native functions.
Pierre Donat-Bouillud
Last updated on 17 Apr 2023 3 min read Programming Languages, Short
Project

Publications

signatr: A Data-Driven Fuzzing Tool for R
The fast-and-loose, permissive semantics of dynamic programming languages limit the power of static analyses. For that reason, …
Alexi Turcotte, Pierre Donat-Bouillud, Filip Křikava, Jan Vitek
PDF Cite Project