Friday, September 7, 2007

sql rainbow tables

I thought of a brilliant QA plan. Create sql rainbow tables! Just trust me, this system of QA will be very powerful in bug finding. Especially important will be the comparison of old/new versions of mysql. Writing a prototype now, on my day off.

Just during prototype development, I've discovered a handful of bugs. I'm testing all functions that are documented in the manual. This is alot that I've written up:


mysql> select count(*),category from func group by category;
+----------+--------------+
| count(*) | category |
+----------+--------------+
| 6 | arithmetic |
| 7 | bit |
| 60 | casting |
| 47 | comparison |
| 52 | datetime |
| 18 | encryption |
| 127 | geometry |
| 17 | information |
| 7 | logical |
| 32 | mathematical |
| 9 | misc |
| 47 | string |
| 2 | xml |
+----------+--------------+
13 rows in set (0.00 sec)


Let me explain this rainbow tables concept with a simple example.
Suppose we have a function, like "GREATEST()".

I run a query like this:

SELECT GREATEST(col1,col2,col3) FROM table0;

The columns col1,col2,col3 will form any combination of column type. So we have int, date, string, blob, spatial! Given a combination of all datatypes and all function parameters, it leaves us with a good few million queries. Of course, a few million queries is not so much for a machine to execute quickly..

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