Sanity check
<programming> 1. Checking
code (or anything else, e.g. a
Usenet posting) for completely stupid mistakes.
Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it was written; e.g. if a piece of scientific software relied on a particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the formula, as a "sanity check", before looking at the more complex I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the
algorithm itself.
Compare
reality check.
2. A run-time test, either validating input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed up internally (producing an inconsistent value or state).
[
Jargon File]
