Testing reading and writing of WMF files

[Jefferson Carpenter]

I'm trying to imagine what would be a good way to test for the successful
processing (reading or writing) of a Windows Media Format file.

The WMReader interface has to parse the file correctly.  I believe it would
be impossible to test for this, without having a natural WMF (.wma, .wmv,
or .asf) file to read.  There are two ways of getting one: include one in
the test suite, or create one as part of the test.  The first option has
certain disadvantages, such as A) the file size and B) inability to tweak
the contents, or easily make a variety of similar files, should the need
arise.

Also, the WMWriter has to write the file correctly.  I see only two ways of
testing this: compare the output byte-for-byte with a file generated on a
Windows PC, or attempt to read the generated file with a known good wmf
implementation.  The first way would assume the output is always the same
byte-for-byte, which it may not be.  For the second, we would need a
conforming implementation to use.

It seems to me, libav would be quite useful, as it can already decode and
encode many if not most of the WMF formats.  Do you think it's a valid
assumption to make, that libav's codecs are a conforming implementation of
the WMF formats?

Jefferson Carpenter