Re: [bitcoin-dev] testing bitcoin nodes

From: Alexander Leishman <leishman3@gmail•com>
To: Niels Thijssen <niels.thijssen@improveqs•nl>,
	 Bitcoin Protocol Discussion
	<bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] testing bitcoin nodes
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2019 10:33:28 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CABW94zRu+wo5KKczMiTwG6GXt+icThTVN4oh62BykVFk_hueQQ@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <AM0PR07MB54744DA07A130BFB8B0C65DAE9AA0@AM0PR07MB5474.eurprd07.prod.outlook.com>

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Hey Niels,

I'm no expert on bitcoind tests, but maybe these bits of information can
help you get started:

The steps to build bitcoind typically involve running:

./autogen.sh

./configure

make

make install

When you run autogen, the autoreconf
<https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/manual/autoconf-2.68/html_node/autoreconf-Invocation.html>
tool
is invoked which creates the configure script that gets run next. The
configure script is generated based on the configure.ac
<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/configure.ac> file, which
performs a number of compatibility checks for the compiler and other
tooling. You can see these checks being performed with
the AX_CHECK_COMPILE_FLAG calls.

My understanding is that running configure does a lot of system
compatibility checks. When you run "make", I do not think any tests get run
by default, but I could be wrong about this. If you want to run unit tests
you need to run "make check". You can read more about this here
<https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/test/README.md>

There are unit tests for bitcoind written in C++ and a lot of integration
and higher level tests written in python.

Hopefully this information was useful and accurate. Again, I could be wrong
about exactly how the build process works as it's not super obvious.
Hopefully someone else more knowledgeable than me can chime in here if I
got anything wrong.

Best,

Alex

On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 10:06 AM Niels Thijssen via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists•linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

>
> As no one was able to respond, a gentle reminder : 😊
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm working as (software) test specialist and run private a full bitcoin
> node (based upon Raspberry Pi 4).
> I've been trying to figure out the tests performed during
> installation/upgrade/compilation of the software for the node.
> Is there any overview on what's the (common) test approach, or other
> stuff. Because the tests on GitHub don't help me that much.
> I'd like to figure out what/how is tested, maybe refine test cases, and
> try some manual test also, as part of learning.
>
> Who would be able to join me or share information that guides me.
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Niels.
>
>
>
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