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authorWladimir J. van der Laan <laanwj@protonmail.com>2019-08-19 16:08:45 +0200
committerWladimir J. van der Laan <laanwj@protonmail.com>2019-08-19 16:08:53 +0200
commitbd62f8d6eed83a3e8249177513e2a29d6af0dc0e (patch)
tree75a0ee7038d4eacfad67c63b1e311da887ea9184 /doc
parent83112db129de1ad5a606a92352a4b3240ad8e96b (diff)
parent8616c81f08c8118003e035808b3f237b3bb211a9 (diff)
downloadbitcoin-bd62f8d6eed83a3e8249177513e2a29d6af0dc0e.tar.xz
Merge #16645: doc: initial RapidCheck property-based testing documentation
8616c81f08c8118003e035808b3f237b3bb211a9 doc: initial RapidCheck property-based testing documentation (Jon Atack) Pull request description: This commit proposes documentation that would have been helpful to me when setting up RapidCheck to work correctly with Bitcoin Core. I tested these instructions repeatedly with Linux (Debian 4.19 / GCC 8.3) and macOS (10.14.6 / AppleClang 10). The markdown version can be seen at https://github.com/jonatack/bitcoin/blob/rapidcheck-documentation/doc/rapidcheck.md. ACKs for top commit: fanquake: ACK 8616c81f08c8118003e035808b3f237b3bb211a9 - Thanks for updating. Tree-SHA512: 9c2a65f0eb99f59e9adfea82855f217727a8a9d30618c1c0bdd2a73ae9c1ee61bc7efd59fc8703a666d182ad4220e22d6034ac3109311e6573dad00dfa4b06ea
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+# RapidCheck property-based testing for Bitcoin Core
+
+## Concept
+
+Property-based testing is experimentally being added to Bitcoin Core with
+[RapidCheck](https://github.com/emil-e/rapidcheck), a C++ framework for
+property-based testing inspired by the Haskell library
+[QuickCheck](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck).
+
+RapidCheck performs random testing of program properties. A specification of the
+program is given in the form of properties which functions should satisfy, and
+RapidCheck tests that the properties hold in a large number of randomly
+generated cases.
+
+If an exception is found, RapidCheck tries to find the smallest case, for some
+definition of smallest, for which the property is still false and displays it as
+a counter-example. For example, if the input is an integer, RapidCheck tries to
+find the smallest integer for which the property is false.
+
+## Running
+
+If RapidCheck is installed, Bitcoin Core will automatically run the
+property-based tests with the unit tests during `make check`, unless the
+`--without-rapidcheck` flag is passed when configuring.
+
+For more information, run `./configure --help` and see `--with-rapidcheck` under
+Optional Packages.
+
+## Setup
+
+The following instructions have been tested with Linux Debian and macOS.
+
+1. Clone the RapidCheck source code and cd into the repository.
+
+ ```shell
+ git clone https://github.com/emil-e/rapidcheck.git
+ cd rapidcheck
+ ```
+
+2. Build RapidCheck (requires CMake to be installed).
+
+ ```shell
+ cmake -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE:BOOL=true -DRC_ENABLE_BOOST_TEST=ON $(pwd)
+ make && make install
+ ```
+
+3. Configure Bitcoin Core with RapidCheck.
+
+ `cd` to the directory of your local bitcoin repository and run
+ `./configure`. In the output you should see:
+
+ ```shell
+ checking rapidcheck.h usability... yes
+ checking rapidcheck.h presence... yes
+ checking for rapidcheck.h... yes
+ [...]
+ Options used to compile and link:
+ [...]
+ with test = yes
+ with prop = yes
+ ```
+
+4. Build Bitcoin Core with RapidCheck.
+
+ Now you can run `make` and should see the property-based tests compiled with
+ the unit tests:
+
+ ```shell
+ Making all in src
+ [...]
+ CXX test/gen/test_bitcoin-crypto_gen.o
+ CXX test/test_bitcoin-key_properties.o
+ ```
+
+5. Run the unit tests with `make check`. The property-based tests will be run
+ with the unit tests.
+
+ ```shell
+ Running tests: crypto_tests from test/crypto_tests.cpp
+ [...]
+ Running tests: key_properties from test/key_properties.cpp
+ ```
+
+That's it! You are now running property-based tests in Bitcoin Core.