Difficulty Tests

These tests are designed to just check the difficulty formula of a block.

Location	BasicTests (difficulty*.json)
Supported Hardforks	Test Networks | Frontier | Homestead
Status	Outdated

difficulty = DIFFICULTY(currentBlockNumber, currentTimestamp, parentTimestamp, parentDifficulty)

described at EIP2 point 4 with homestead changes.

So basically this .json tests are just to check how this function is calculated on different function parameters (parentDifficulty, currentNumber) in its extremum points.

There are several test files:

difficulty.json

Normal Frontier/Homestead chain difficulty tests defined manually

difficultyFrontier.json

Same as above, but auto-generated tests

difficultyMorden.json

Tests for testnetwork difficulty. (it has different homestead transition block)

difficultyOlimpic.json

Olympic network. (no homestead)

difficultyHomestead.json

Tests for homestead difficulty (regardless of the block number)

difficultyCustomHomestead.json

Tests for homestead difficulty (regardless of the block number)

Test Structure

{
        "difficultyTest" : {
                "parentTimestamp" : "42",
                "parentDifficulty" : "1000000",
                "currentTimestamp" : "43",
                "currentBlockNumber" : "42",
                "currentDifficulty" : "1000488"
        }
}

Sections

• parentTimestamp - indicates the timestamp of a previous block
• parentDifficulty - indicates the difficulty of a previous block
• currentTimestamp - indicates the timestamp of a current block
• currentBlockNumber - indicates the number of a current block (previous block number = currentBlockNumber - 1)
• currentDifficulty - indicates the difficulty of a current block