Testing EIPs¶

Ori Pomerantz

In this tutorial you learn how to write tests for a new EIP (after the EIP itself has been implemented on a branch of geth).

Environment¶

The easiest way to do this is to run restetheth in a docker container you build. To be able to isolate problems, it is best if the docker container includes both the branch geth and the standard one.

Get the Dockerfile and the script:

mkdir ~/retestethBuild
cd ~/retestethBuild
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ethereum/retesteth/develop/dretesteth.sh
chmod +x dretesteth.sh
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ethereum/retesteth/develop/Dockerfile

Edit Dockerfile:

In the last line of the string of commands that builds geth, remove the && rm -rf /usr/local/go. We are going to need to compile geth again in a moment.

RUN cd /geth && apt-get install wget \
  && wget https://dl.google.com/go/go1.18.linux-amd64.tar.gz \
  && tar -xvf go1.18.linux-amd64.tar.gz \
  && mv go /usr/local && ln -s /usr/local/go/bin/go /bin/go \
  && make all && cp /geth/build/bin/evm /bin/evm \
  && cp /geth/build/bin/geth /bin/geth \
  && rm -rf /geth

Duplicate the geth commands, except for these changes:
- Clone a repository that includes the modified geth (it may be a branch of the main geth repository, or a different repository altogether).
- Remove the code that installs the Go programming language.
- Change the binaries to evm-eip and geth-eip.
For example, there is a version of geth here with EIP-1153 support. These are the commands to install and compile it:
RUN git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/snreynolds/go-ethereum /geth RUN cd /geth && apt-get install wget \ && make all && cp /geth/build/bin/evm /bin/evm-eip \ && cp /geth/build/bin/geth /bin/geth-eip \ && rm -rf /geth && rm -rf /usr/local/go

Issue ./dretesteth.sh build.
Run at least one test to initialize the tests/config directory.
To make life easier, change the ownership of those files:
```
sudo find tests/config -exec chown `whoami` {} \;
```

Copy the t8ntool configuration to t8ntool-eip:

cd tests/config
cp -R t8ntool/ t8ntool-eip

Edit t8ntool-eip/start.sh to use the evm-eip binary:

#!/bin/sh

if [ $1 = "-v" ]; then
    /bin/evm-eip -v
else
    stateProvided=0
    for index in ${1} ${2} ${3} ${4} ${5} ${6} ${7} ${8} ${9} ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16} ${17} $
        if [ $index = "--input.alloc" ]; then
            stateProvided=1
            break
        fi
    done
    if [ $stateProvided -eq 1 ]; then
        /bin/evm-eip t8n ${1} ${2} ${3} ${4} ${5} ${6} ${7} ${8} ${9} ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16$
    else
        /bin/evm-eip t9n ${1} ${2} ${3} ${4} ${5} ${6} ${7} ${8} ${9} ${10} ${11} ${12} ${13} ${14} ${15} ${16$
    fi
fi

Use --clients t8ntool-eip to run tests with the modified geth.

Test Cases¶

Most EIPs include multiple test cases, some valid, some not. In most cases you’ll be able to write either state tests or block tests to verify the functionality.

Testing new Opcodes¶

The Yul programming language supports verbatim opcodes. See here for an example of using verbatim (written before the BASEFEE opcode was supported by Yul).

Conclusion¶

At this point you should know enough to test whether geth implements an EIP correctly or not.