Give erf/erfinv real accuracy, domain and monotonicity tests

The round-trip test (ErfinvInvertsErf) was the only defense of
erfinv's accuracy, and it is blind by construction: it can only prove
erf and erfinv agree with each other, not that either is correct. A
hand mutation of a single tail coefficient degraded erfinv's worst
error 300-400x (5.0e-7 to 2.0e-4) and every committed test still
passed. Added ErfinvMatchesReferenceValues, pinned against reference
values from bisecting the platform's double-precision erf (Python's
math.erf, glibc-backed) rather than this package's own erf, out to
|y| = 0.9999, at the same 2e-6 absolute bar erf's own reference test
carries. Expected values are computed for the actual float32-rounded
input, not the decimal literal, because erfinv's derivative diverges
near +-1 and that rounding alone moves the true answer by more than
the error bar if ignored.

Verified against three hand mutations, each restored byte-exactly
afterward:
- erfinv tail leading coefficient 2.83297682f -> 2.83317682f: killed
  (4 assertions failed).
- erfinv tail second coefficient 1.00167406f -> 1.00187406f: killed
  (4 assertions failed).
- erf's `p` coefficient 0.3275911f -> 0.3275930f: survives. Soul
  measured this one 2.3x worse but still under the 2e-6 bar the spec
  pins; this is not a fixture gap, it is the mutant staying inside the
  accuracy envelope the tests are supposed to allow. Recorded here
  rather than tightening the bar past what the spec asked for.

Added ErfinvAtDomainEdgesAndBeyond, pinning the domain and edge
behavior from the matching source comment: erfinv(1) = +infinity,
erfinv(-1) = -infinity, and NaN outside [-1, 1] including +-infinity
and NaN input.

Deleted ErfinvIsMonotonicallyIncreasing: it asserted strict
monotonicity, which erfinv does not have. Scanning every representable
float32 in [0, 0.999999] finds 9662 backward steps, first at
y = 0.00022214651, worst drop 5.960464e-8 (one ULP at that scale) --
invisible only because the old fixture stepped by 0.001. erf has the
same shape: 100 backward steps over [0, 4.5], worst drop 1.192093e-7.
Replaced it with two tests: ErfinvIsMonotonicWithinFloatingPointTolerance,
pinning monotonicity to within 1e-6 (comfortably above the measured
noise floor), and ErfCellMassesStayNonNegativeAcrossRealisticGeometries,
the consumer-level property that actually matters for fire control:
differences of adjacent erf values (cell probability mass) stay
non-negative across 16/64/256/1024/4096 cells over +-4 sigma, plus a
tight 1 sigma spread and a very tight 0.25 sigma spread.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Meta Vens 2026-09-22 21:29:27 +02:00
commit 4cdc02b200

View file

@ -419,16 +419,106 @@ public sealed class MathTests
}
}
[Fact]
public void ErfinvIsMonotonicallyIncreasing()
// Reference values from bisecting the platform's double-precision erf (Python's math.erf,
// glibc-backed), not this package's own erf, to 200 iterations over [-6, 6] -- effectively
// exact at float precision. This is what ErfinvInvertsErf cannot be: a check against this
// package's own erf only proves the two functions agree with each other, not that either is
// numerically correct. Soul measured the round-trip test alone to be blind to a coefficient
// change that degraded erfinv's worst error 300-400x (5.0e-7 to 2.0e-4).
[Theory]
// Expected values are computed for the actual float32-rounded input (e.g. the literal
// 0.999f is really 0.9990000128746033 as a double), not the decimal literal, because
// erfinv's derivative diverges near +-1: at y = 0.999f that rounding alone moves the
// true answer by ~2.6e-6, larger than the test's own error bar, if ignored.
[InlineData(0.0f, 0.0)]
[InlineData(0.1f, 0.08885599182530649)]
[InlineData(-0.1f, -0.08885599182530649)]
[InlineData(0.3f, 0.2724627261055238)]
[InlineData(-0.3f, -0.2724627261055238)]
[InlineData(0.5f, 0.4769362762044699)]
[InlineData(-0.5f, -0.4769362762044699)]
[InlineData(0.7f, 0.7328690598827587)]
[InlineData(-0.7f, -0.732869059882759)]
[InlineData(0.9f, 1.1630870719457724)]
[InlineData(-0.9f, -1.1630870719457729)]
[InlineData(0.95f, 1.3859037522360764)]
[InlineData(-0.95f, -1.3859037522360773)]
[InlineData(0.99f, 1.8213866009002766)]
[InlineData(-0.99f, -1.8213866009002793)]
[InlineData(0.999f, 2.3267563267961435)]
[InlineData(-0.999f, -2.3267563267961657)]
[InlineData(0.9999f, 2.751035437903192)]
[InlineData(-0.9999f, -2.751035437903383)]
public void ErfinvMatchesReferenceValues(float y, double expected)
{
Assert.True(
Math.Abs(math.erfinv(y) - expected) <= 2e-6,
$"erfinv({y}) = {math.erfinv(y)}, expected {expected}");
}
[Fact]
public void ErfinvAtDomainEdgesAndBeyond()
{
// Domain is [-1, 1]. The edges are the correctly-signed infinite limits; anything
// outside, including +-infinity itself, has no real inverse and is NaN.
Assert.Equal(float.PositiveInfinity, math.erfinv(1.0f));
Assert.Equal(float.NegativeInfinity, math.erfinv(-1.0f));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(1.0001f)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(-1.0001f)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(2.0f)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(-2.0f)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(float.PositiveInfinity)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(float.NegativeInfinity)));
Assert.True(float.IsNaN(math.erfinv(float.NaN)));
}
// The deleted ErfinvIsMonotonicallyIncreasing asserted a property erfinv does not have:
// Soul measured 9662 backward steps scanning every representable float32 in [0, 0.999999],
// first at y = 0.00022214651, worst drop 5.960464e-8 (one ULP at that scale) -- invisible
// only because that fixture stepped by 0.001. erf has the same shape: 100 backward steps
// over [0, 4.5], worst drop 1.192093e-7. Pin what is actually true: monotone to within a
// tolerance comfortably above that measured noise floor.
[Fact]
public void ErfinvIsMonotonicWithinFloatingPointTolerance()
{
const float tolerance = 1e-6f;
var previous = float.NegativeInfinity;
for (var i = -999; i <= 999; i++)
{
var y = i / 1000.0f;
var x = math.erfinv(y);
Assert.True(x > previous, $"erfinv({y}) = {x} did not exceed previous value {previous}");
Assert.True(
x >= previous - tolerance,
$"erfinv({y}) = {x} dropped more than {tolerance} below previous value {previous}");
previous = x;
}
}
// The consumer-level property that actually matters: fire control turns adjacent erf
// values into a cell's probability mass, so a backward step in erf would show up as a
// negative mass. Soul checked these geometries clean: 16/64/256/1024/4096 cells over
// +-4 sigma, plus a tight 1 sigma spread and a very tight 0.25 sigma spread.
[Theory]
[InlineData(16, 4f)]
[InlineData(64, 4f)]
[InlineData(256, 4f)]
[InlineData(1024, 4f)]
[InlineData(4096, 4f)]
[InlineData(256, 1f)]
[InlineData(64, 0.25f)]
public void ErfCellMassesStayNonNegativeAcrossRealisticGeometries(int cells, float sigmaRange)
{
var lo = -sigmaRange;
var hi = sigmaRange;
var step = (hi - lo) / cells;
var previous = math.erf(lo / MathF.Sqrt(2f));
for (var i = 1; i <= cells; i++)
{
var edge = lo + step * i;
var current = math.erf(edge / MathF.Sqrt(2f));
var mass = current - previous;
Assert.True(mass >= 0f, $"cell {i} of {cells} over +-{sigmaRange} sigma has negative mass {mass}");
previous = current;
}
}
}