Spot-Checkers

On Labor Day weekend, the highway patrol sets up spot-checks at random points on the freeways with the intention of deterring a large fraction of motorists from driving incorrectly. We explore a very similar idea in the context of program checking to ascertain with minimal overhead that a program output is reasonably correct. Our model of spot-checking requires that the spot-checker must run asymptotically much faster than the combined length of the input and output. We then show that the spot-checking model can be applied to problems in a wide range of areas, including problems regarding graphs, sets, and algebra. In particular, we present spot-checkers for sorting, convex hull, element distinctness, set containment, set equality, total orders, and correctness of group and field operations. All of our spotcheckers are very simple to state and rely on testing that the input and/or output have certain simple properties that depend on very few bits. Our results also give property tests...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1998
• Where: STOC
• Authors: Funda Ergün, Sampath Kannan, Ravi Kumar, Ronitt Rubinfeld, Mahesh Viswanathan
• Keywords: Algorithms, Input And/or Output, Labor Day, Problems Regarding Graphs, STOC 1998