Files
bitcoin/src/test
merge-script f11dc6170e Merge bitcoin/bitcoin#35482: fuzz: exercise the transaction-handling path in process_message(s)
87b080fe2b fuzz: reset the reused mempool in process_message(s) (Hao Xu)
d522fd3196 fuzz: prepare deterministic mempool rebuilds (Hao Xu)
b11456386b fuzz: let the test input toggle IBD in the p2p fuzz targets (Hao Xu)
2a29cee684 test: add helper to reset chainman and mempool (Hao Xu)
2a4ef42d34 fuzz: share a single FakeNodeClock in the chainman-resetting fuzz targets (Hao Xu)

Pull request description:

  ## Problem

  `process_message` and `process_messages` keep the node in IBD (`ResetIbd()`) and
  mine their coinbases with the default bare-`OP_TRUE` output script. As a result
  `net_processing` returns early at the `IsInitialBlockDownload()` check and never
  reaches the transaction-handling path; and even if it did, a tx spending a
  bare-`OP_TRUE` coinbase is rejected as `NONSTANDARD` by
  `ValidateInputsStandardness`. The reused mempool therefore always stays empty and
  that path is never exercised.

  ## Changes

  Both targets now get the same treatment:

  1. **Toggle IBD from the test input** — a `bool` decides whether to also
     `JumpOutOfIbd()`, exercising both the IBD and non-IBD paths. In
     `process_message` it is consumed last, so existing corpus entries read `false`
     and are unchanged. In `process_messages` the messages run in a loop, so the
     bool must be consumed *first* (see the corpus note below).
  2. **Use a spendable `P2WSH_OP_TRUE` coinbase** — both anyone-can-spend (an
     `OP_TRUE` witness, no signature) and a standard witness output, so a fuzz-built
     tx spending a mature coinbase can actually be accepted into the mempool.
  3. **Reset the rng before rebuilding (preparation)** — rebuilding the chainman
     (and, in the next commit, the mempool) consumes the global PRNG. Reset it with
     `MakeRandDeterministicDANGEROUS()` first so the rebuild is deterministic across
     iterations. Mirrors the `cmpctblock` harness.
  4. **Reset the reused mempool** — now that the mempool can become non-empty,
     rebuild it together with the chainman in `ResetChainmanAndMempool()` when the
     block index grew or the mempool changed. A dirty mempool is detected by its
     sequence number rather than its size, since a tx can be added and removed
     within one iteration (leaving the size unchanged).

  ## Corpus note

  ~~In `process_messages` the IBD bool is consumed before the message loop (first
  integral read), which shifts the `FuzzedDataProvider` layout. Existing
  `process_messages` corpus entries can be migrated by appending a single `0x00`
  byte at the end (read as `false`, keeping the IBD path); every other consumed
  value stays the same. This is a qa-assets change accompanying this PR.~~

    This note no longer applies because the IBD toggle is now consumed inside the
    message loop. Appending a single `0x00` byte would not reliably target that bool
    or preserve the rest of the input layout.

    The accompanying `qa-assets` update should migrate or regenerate the affected
    `process_messages` corpus entries for the current layout.

ACKs for top commit:
  Crypt-iQ:
    crACK 87b080fe2b
  maflcko:
    review ACK 87b080fe2b 🏁
  frankomosh:
    Review ACK 87b080fe2b

Tree-SHA512: e557b2ca3329767a45fe8315c63df9c3191a3a46a17c5e75ea3e4ad0c25e0e500a687fa650297a386b0a2ebb95503d069089ca5ae3d0a34caab98367aeb28683
2026-08-07 10:01:37 +01:00
..
2026-07-11 11:09:33 +01:00

Unit tests

The sources in this directory are unit test cases. Boost includes a unit testing framework, and since Bitcoin Core already uses Boost, it makes sense to simply use this framework rather than require developers to configure some other framework (we want as few impediments to creating unit tests as possible).

The build system is set up to compile an executable called test_bitcoin that runs all of the unit tests. The main source file for the test library is found in util/setup_common.cpp.

The examples in this document assume the build directory is named build. You'll need to adapt them if you named it differently.

Compiling/running unit tests

Unit tests will be automatically compiled if dependencies were met during the generation of the Bitcoin Core build system and tests weren't explicitly disabled.

The unit tests can be run with ctest --test-dir build, which includes unit tests from subtrees.

Run build/bin/test_bitcoin --list_content for the full list of tests.

To run the unit tests manually, launch build/bin/test_bitcoin. To recompile after a test file was modified, run cmake --build build and then run the test again. If you modify a non-test file, use cmake --build build --target test_bitcoin to recompile only what's needed to run the unit tests.

To add more unit tests, add BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE functions to the existing .cpp files in the test/ directory or add new .cpp files that implement new BOOST_AUTO_TEST_SUITE sections.

To run the GUI unit tests manually, launch build/bin/test_bitcoin-qt

To add more GUI unit tests, add them to the src/qt/test/ directory and the src/qt/test/test_main.cpp file.

Running individual tests

The test_bitcoin runner accepts command line arguments from the Boost framework. To see the list of arguments that may be passed, run:

build/bin/test_bitcoin --help

For example, to run only the tests in the getarg_tests file, with full logging:

build/bin/test_bitcoin --log_level=all --run_test=getarg_tests

or

build/bin/test_bitcoin -l all -t getarg_tests

or to run only the doubledash test in getarg_tests

build/bin/test_bitcoin --run_test=getarg_tests/doubledash

The --log_level= (or -l) argument controls the verbosity of the test output.

The test_bitcoin runner also accepts some of the command line arguments accepted by bitcoind. Use -- to separate these sets of arguments:

build/bin/test_bitcoin --log_level=all --run_test=getarg_tests -- -printtoconsole=1

The -printtoconsole=1 after the two dashes sends debug logging, which normally goes only to debug.log within the data directory, to the standard terminal output as well.

Running test_bitcoin creates a temporary working (data) directory with a randomly generated pathname within test_common bitcoin/, which in turn is within the system's temporary directory (see temp_directory_path). This data directory looks like a simplified form of the standard bitcoind data directory. Its content will vary depending on the test, but it will always have a debug.log file, for example.

The location of the temporary data directory can be specified with the -testdatadir option. This can make debugging easier. The directory path used is the argument path appended with /test_common bitcoin/<test-name>/datadir. The directory path is created if necessary. Specifying this argument also causes the data directory not to be removed after the last test. This is useful for looking at what the test wrote to debug.log after it completes, for example. (The directory is removed at the start of the next test run, so no leftover state is used.)

$ build/bin/test_bitcoin --run_test=getarg_tests/doubledash -- -testdatadir=/somewhere/mydatadir
Test directory (will not be deleted): "/somewhere/mydatadir/test_common bitcoin/getarg_tests/doubledash/datadir"
Running 1 test case...

*** No errors detected
$ ls -l '/somewhere/mydatadir/test_common bitcoin/getarg_tests/doubledash/datadir'
total 8
drwxrwxr-x 2 admin admin 4096 Nov 27 22:45 blocks
-rw-rw-r-- 1 admin admin 1003 Nov 27 22:45 debug.log

If you run an entire test suite, such as --run_test=getarg_tests, or all the test suites (by not specifying --run_test), a separate directory will be created for each individual test.

Adding test cases

To add a new unit test file to our test suite, you need to add the file to either src/test/CMakeLists.txt or src/wallet/test/CMakeLists.txt for wallet-related tests. The pattern is to create one test file for each class or source file for which you want to create unit tests. The file naming convention is <source_filename>_tests.cpp and such files should wrap their tests in a test suite called <source_filename>_tests. For an example of this pattern, see uint256_tests.cpp.

Logging and debugging in unit tests

ctest --test-dir build will write to the log file build/Testing/Temporary/LastTest.log. You can additionally use the --output-on-failure option to display logs of the failed tests automatically on failure. For running individual tests verbosely, refer to the section above.

To write to logs from unit tests you need to use specific message methods provided by Boost. The simplest is BOOST_TEST_MESSAGE.

For debugging you can launch the test_bitcoin executable with gdb or lldb and start debugging, just like you would with any other program:

gdb build/bin/test_bitcoin

Segmentation faults

If you hit a segmentation fault during a test run, you can diagnose where the fault is happening by running gdb ./build/bin/test_bitcoin and then using the bt command within gdb.

Another tool that can be used to resolve segmentation faults is valgrind.

If for whatever reason you want to produce a core dump file for this fault, you can do that as well. By default, the boost test runner will intercept system errors and not produce a core file. To bypass this, add --catch_system_errors=no to the test_bitcoin arguments and ensure that your ulimits are set properly (e.g. ulimit -c unlimited).

Running the tests and hitting a segmentation fault should now produce a file called core (on Linux platforms, the file name will likely depend on the contents of /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern).

You can then explore the core dump using

gdb build/bin/test_bitcoin core

(gdb) bt  # produce a backtrace for where a segfault occurred