Compare two functions using quickcheck to generate positive integers - haskell

Question

I have the following Haskell functions:
expM :: Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> Integer
expM x y = rem (x^y)
And
exMME :: Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> Integer
exMME b 0 m = 1
exMME b e m = exMME' b e m 1 0 where
exMME' b e m c e'
| e' < e = exMME' b e m ((b * c) `mod` m) (e'+1)
| otherwise = c
What I want to do is use quickCheck to compare these two functions so i can see that they produce the same answer and which one is the fastest.
To test if they have the same answers I want to let QuickCheck create random positive integers with the exception of 0. So I created a Gen:
positives :: Gen Integer
positives =
do -- Pick an arbitrary integer:
x <- arbitrary
if (x == 0)
then return 1
else if (x < 0)
then return (-x)
else
return x
This works from the command line (ghci) but I have a prop:
prop_CompareAnswerExMFM :: Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> Bool
prop_CompareAnswerExMFM b e m =exMFM b e m == exM b e m
And each time i call this with QuickCheck prop_CompareAnswerExMFM it doesn't us my gen. After reading some stuff i toughed that i needed to define a instance:
instance Arbitrary Integer where
arbitrary = positives
This doesn't work because a arbitrary instance of Integer already exist. Again after some googling I say that the standard way to solve this is to use a wrapper:
newtype Positives = Positives Integer
deriving (Eq, Ord, Show)
instance Arbitrary Positives where
arbitrary = positives
positives :: Gen Positives
positives =
do -- Pick an arbitrary integer:
x <- arbitrary
if (x == 0)
then return 1
else if (x < 0)
then return (-x)
else
return x
But after playing around i keep getting errors like can't resolve this, No instance for (Num Positives) arising from the literal '0' or Can't make a derived instance of 'Num Positives'.
I think i'm making it way to complex for what i want but I just can't figure it out. I hope someone can help me or send me in the right direction.
Thanks

Answer 1

The problem with your code is that in positives the variable x has type Integer, so your return statements need to include the Positives constructor:
positives :: Gen Positives
positives =
do -- Pick an arbitrary integer:
x <- arbitrary
if (x == 0)
then return $ Positives 1
else if (x < 0)
then return $ Positives (-x)
else
return $ Positives x
If it helps, here is another way to write (a similarly working) positives function:
positives' :: Gen Positives
positives' = fmap (\x -> Positives (1 + abs x)) arbitrary
Here the arbitrary call is a Gen Integer, so the function argument to fmap has type Integer -> Positives.
To use your Positives newtype with QuickCheck you would use the Positives (de-)constructor to get at the Integer values:
prop_addition :: Positives -> Positives -> Bool
prop_addition (Positives a) (Positives b) = a + b >= 2
ghci> quickCheck prop_addtion
As #Carsten mentions in the comments, QuickCheck as a Positive a type which has an arbitrary instance for numeric and ordered types a.

Answer 2

Here's a quick way that doesn't require much understanding of QuickCheck but is a bit of a hack:
prop_CompareAnswerExMFM :: Integer -> Integer -> Integer -> Bool
prop_CompareAnswerExMFM b e m =
exMFM absB absE absM == exM absB absE absM
where -- following guarantees args are positive integers > 0
absB = 1 + abs b
absE = 1 + abs e
absM = 1 + abs m
and then you can just use
quickCheck prop_factored