Differential Testing for Biomedical Signal File Parsers

This is a pre-results study protocol and pre-analysis plan. This manuscript proposes a differential testing framework for biomedical signal file parsers, with emphasis on EDF, EDF+, and BDF software libraries. The study design compares the behavior of multiple independent readers on controlled input files in order to identify inconsistencies, parser-specific assumptions, ambiguous format handling, and potential implementation defects. The planned framework combines fixture generation, cross-reader output comparison, metadata validation, and reproducible reporting. The manuscript does not report discovered bugs or empirical findings. It describes the planned testing architecture, comparison metrics, fixture categories, analysis workflow, and limitations for a future implementation and evaluation.