Source: delta Section: devel Maintainer: Debian QA Group Standards-Version: 4.7.3 Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 13), flex Vcs-Browser: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/delta Vcs-Git: https://salsa.debian.org/debian/delta.git Package: delta Architecture: any Depends: ${perl:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends} Description: heuristic tool to minimize failure-inducing files for debugging Delta assists you in minimizing "interesting" files subject to a test of their "interestingness". A common such situation is when attempting to isolate a small failure-inducing substring of a large input that causes your program to exhibit a bug. . Delta is typically used during debugging and software testing to reduce large or complex input files into smaller test cases that still reproduce a specific behavior, such as a crash, incorrect output, or assertion failure. By repeatedly removing parts of the input and checking whether the file remains “interesting” (according to a user-supplied test), Delta helps identify the minimal input needed to trigger the problem. . This is especially useful when reporting bugs upstream or in the Debian BTS, as a minimized test case is easier to analyze, faster to process, and more likely to be accepted and fixed. . Examples of practical use cases: - Reducing a large input file that crashes a compiler or interpreter to the smallest file that still crashes it. - Minimizing a test file generated by a fuzzer so it can be added to a regression test suite. - Isolating the exact fragment of a configuration or data file that causes a program to misbehave. . This package provides the following executables: singledelta, multidelta and topformflat. multidelta performs delta debugging across multiple input files, minimizing them together while preserving a user-defined "interesting" condition. topformflat normalizes structured input files into a flat canonical form (e.g. by removing indentation and layout variations) for use with delta debugging tools.