# Choosing initial test cases

To operate correctly, the fuzzer requires one or more starting file that
contains a good example of the input data normally expected by the targeted
application. There are two basic rules:

  - Keep the files small. Under 1 kB is ideal, although not strictly necessary.
    For a discussion of why size matters, see [perf_tips.md](perf_tips.md).

  - Use multiple test cases only if they are functionally different from
    each other. There is no point in using fifty different vacation photos
    to fuzz an image library.

You can find many good examples of starting files in the testcases/ subdirectory
that comes with this tool.

PS. If a large corpus of data is available for screening, you may want to use
the afl-cmin utility to identify a subset of functionally distinct files that
exercise different code paths in the target binary.