Testing & Debugging

The Splink project provides tools for testing and debugging record linkage models, helping developers to ensure the accuracy and robustness of their code. This outline focuses on the techniques and approaches used within the existing codebase for both testing and debugging.

Unit Testing

The project employs unit testing to verify the functionality of individual components. These tests isolate specific parts of the code, aiming to ensure they behave as expected.

Example:

In the tutorials/07_Quality_assurance.ipynb notebook, the code utilizes various metrics like tp_rate, fp_rate, and f1 to evaluate the performance of the model. Unit tests for this section would focus on confirming the correctness of these calculations when applied to known data inputs.

Integration Testing

Integration testing is another crucial aspect of the project, focusing on verifying the interaction between different components. It ensures that these components work seamlessly together and meet the overall system requirements.

Example:

The examples/duckdb/deterministic_dedupe.ipynb notebook utilizes the vega-embed library for data visualization. An integration test would ensure that the data generated by the model is correctly formatted and rendered by vega-embed without any errors.

Debugging Techniques

The project utilizes various debugging techniques to identify and resolve issues in the code.

Common Techniques

• Logging: Inserting logging statements within the code to track the execution flow and identify problematic areas.
• Breakpoints: Utilizing debuggers to pause code execution at specific points and inspect variable values.
• Error Handling: Implementing robust error handling mechanisms to catch exceptions and provide informative messages.

Examples

• The examples/duckdb/deduplicate_50k_synthetic.ipynb notebook employs a showError function that displays errors in the browser. This helps in identifying and understanding the source of problems.
• The examples/duckdb/deterministic_dedupe.ipynb notebook uses requirejs.config to load dependencies and handles errors gracefully, potentially using the showError function mentioned above.

Testing Environment

The project includes scripts and configuration files to manage the testing environment.

Example:

The recreate_venv.sh script may contain instructions to set up a dedicated virtual environment for testing, ensuring that dependencies are managed and the test environment remains isolated.

Additional Considerations

• Test Coverage: The project may utilize code coverage tools to determine the percentage of code covered by tests, enabling developers to identify areas that require additional testing.
• Test Automation: The project may leverage automated testing frameworks to run tests regularly, ensuring that any code changes do not introduce regressions.
• Continuous Integration (CI): The project may be integrated with CI/CD systems to automate the testing process, allowing developers to receive immediate feedback on code changes.

Top-Level Directory Explanations

examples/ - This directory likely contains examples or sample code for using the project’s components.

examples/athena/ - This subdirectory may contain examples using Amazon Athena, an interactive query service for analyzing data in Amazon S3 using standard SQL.

examples/athena/dashboards/ - This subdirectory may contain Athena dashboard files.

examples/duckdb/ - This subdirectory may contain examples using DuckDB, an open-source in-memory analytic database.

examples/duckdb/dashboards/ - This subdirectory may contain DuckDB dashboard files.

examples/sqlite/ - This subdirectory may contain examples using SQLite, a popular open-source database management system.

examples/sqlite/dashboards/ - This subdirectory may contain SQLite dashboard files.

tutorials/ - This directory may contain tutorials or guides for using the project.