Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Problems? Is your data what you think it is?
 
PerlMonks  

comment on

( [id://3333]=superdoc: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??
Does there exist a way to identify functionally similar blocks of code
In general, you can't, as that will mean solving the halting problem.

That doesn't mean that you will never be able to say "these two pieces of code will do the same thing" - sometimes you can. And sometimes, you will be able to say "these two pieces of code will not do the same thing". It just means that you can't write a program that for any pair of pieces of code can actually decide whether they will do the same thing or not.

As for you example, those pieces of code do not do the same thing. For instance, if $x equals "foo", then $x++ will result in $x becoming "fop", while $x = $x + 1 results in $x becoming 1.

One heuristics that you might try is to compile both pieces of code into bytecode, and compare the bytecodes. That will in a small amount of simple cases tell you that two pieces of code are equivalent.


In reply to Re: Equivalency of Code by Anonymous Monk
in thread Equivalency of Code by rkosai

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post; it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
    <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
  • Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
  • Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.
Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others having an uproarious good time at the Monastery: (6)
As of 2024-03-28 09:55 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found