Testing Smart Contracts

ℹ️ Info

To use the library functions designed for testing smart contracts, you need to add snforge_std package as a dependency in your Scarb.toml using the appropriate version.

[dev-dependencies]
snforge_std = "0.37.0"

Using unit testing as much as possible is a good practice, as it makes your test suites run faster. However, when writing smart contracts, you often want to test their interactions with the blockchain state and with other contracts.

The Test Contract

Let's consider a simple smart contract with two methods.

#[starknet::interface]
pub trait ISimpleContract<TContractState> {
    fn increase_balance(ref self: TContractState, amount: felt252);
    fn get_balance(self: @TContractState) -> felt252;
}

#[starknet::contract]
pub mod SimpleContract {
    use starknet::storage::{StoragePointerReadAccess, StoragePointerWriteAccess};
    #[storage]
    struct Storage {
        balance: felt252,
    }

    #[abi(embed_v0)]
    pub impl SimpleContractImpl of super::ISimpleContract<ContractState> {
        // Increases the balance by the given amount
        fn increase_balance(ref self: ContractState, amount: felt252) {
            self.balance.write(self.balance.read() + amount);
        }

        // Gets the balance.
        fn get_balance(self: @ContractState) -> felt252 {
            self.balance.read()
        }
    }
}

Note that the name after mod will be used as the contract name for testing purposes.

Writing Tests

Let's write a test that will deploy the SimpleContract contract and call some functions.

use snforge_std::{ContractClassTrait, DeclareResultTrait, declare};
use testing_smart_contracts_writing_tests::{
    ISimpleContractDispatcher, ISimpleContractDispatcherTrait,
};

#[test]
fn call_and_invoke() {
    // First declare and deploy a contract
    let contract = declare("SimpleContract").unwrap().contract_class();
    // Alternatively we could use `deploy_syscall` here
    let (contract_address, _) = contract.deploy(@array![]).unwrap();

    // Create a Dispatcher object that will allow interacting with the deployed contract
    let dispatcher = ISimpleContractDispatcher { contract_address };

    // Call a view function of the contract
    let balance = dispatcher.get_balance();
    assert(balance == 0, 'balance == 0');

    // Call a function of the contract
    // Here we mutate the state of the storage
    dispatcher.increase_balance(100);

    // Check that transaction took effect
    let balance = dispatcher.get_balance();
    assert(balance == 100, 'balance == 100');
}

📝 Note

Notice that the arguments to the contract's constructor (the deploy's calldata argument) need to be serialized with Serde.

SimpleContract contract has no constructor, so the calldata remains empty in the example above.

$ snforge test

Collected 2 test(s) from testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors package
Running 2 test(s) from tests/
[FAIL] testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::panic::failing

Failure data:
    (0x50414e4943 ('PANIC'), 0x444159544148 ('DAYTAH'))

[PASS] testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::handle_panic::handling_string_errors (l1_gas: ~0, l1_data_gas: ~96, l2_gas: ~280000)
Running 0 test(s) from src/
Tests: 1 passed, 1 failed, 0 ignored, 0 filtered out

Failures:
    testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::panic::failing

Handling Errors

Sometimes we want to test contracts functions that can panic, like testing that function that verifies caller address panics on invalid address. For that purpose Starknet also provides a SafeDispatcher, that returns a Result instead of panicking.

First, let's add a new, panicking function to our contract.

#[starknet::interface]
pub trait IPanicContract<TContractState> {
    fn do_a_panic(self: @TContractState);
    fn do_a_string_panic(self: @TContractState);
}

#[starknet::contract]
pub mod PanicContract {
    use core::array::ArrayTrait;

    #[storage]
    struct Storage {}

    #[abi(embed_v0)]
    pub impl PanicContractImpl of super::IPanicContract<ContractState> {
        // Panics
        fn do_a_panic(self: @ContractState) {
            panic(array!['PANIC', 'DAYTAH']);
        }

        fn do_a_string_panic(self: @ContractState) {
            // A macro which allows panicking with a ByteArray (string) instance
            panic!("This is panicking with a string, which can be longer than 31 characters");
        }
    }
}

If we called this function in a test, it would result in a failure.

use snforge_std::{ContractClassTrait, DeclareResultTrait, declare};
use testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors::{
    IPanicContractDispatcher, IPanicContractDispatcherTrait,
};

#[test]
fn failing() {
    let contract = declare("PanicContract").unwrap().contract_class();
    let (contract_address, _) = contract.deploy(@array![]).unwrap();
    let dispatcher = IPanicContractDispatcher { contract_address };

    dispatcher.do_a_panic();
}

$ snforge test

Collected 2 test(s) from testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors package
Running 2 test(s) from tests/
[FAIL] testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::panic::failing

Failure data:
    (0x50414e4943 ('PANIC'), 0x444159544148 ('DAYTAH'))

[PASS] testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::handle_panic::handling_string_errors (l1_gas: ~0, l1_data_gas: ~96, l2_gas: ~280000)
Running 0 test(s) from src/
Tests: 1 passed, 1 failed, 0 ignored, 0 filtered out

Failures:
    testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors_integrationtest::panic::failing

SafeDispatcher

Using SafeDispatcher we can test that the function in fact panics with an expected message. Safe dispatcher is a special kind of dispatcher that allows using the contract without automatically unwrapping the result, thereby making possible to catch the error like shown below.

use snforge_std::{ContractClassTrait, DeclareResultTrait, declare};
use testing_smart_contracts_safe_dispatcher::{
    IPanicContractSafeDispatcher, IPanicContractSafeDispatcherTrait,
};

#[test]
#[feature("safe_dispatcher")]
fn handling_errors() {
    let contract = declare("PanicContract").unwrap().contract_class();
    let (contract_address, _) = contract.deploy(@array![]).unwrap();
    let safe_dispatcher = IPanicContractSafeDispatcher { contract_address };

    match safe_dispatcher.do_a_panic() {
        Result::Ok(_) => panic!("Entrypoint did not panic"),
        Result::Err(panic_data) => {
            assert(*panic_data.at(0) == 'PANIC', *panic_data.at(0));
            assert(*panic_data.at(1) == 'DAYTAH', *panic_data.at(1));
        },
    };
}

Now the test passes as expected.

$ snforge test

Collected 1 test(s) from testing_smart_contracts_safe_dispatcher package
Running 0 test(s) from src/
Running 1 test(s) from tests/
[PASS] testing_smart_contracts_safe_dispatcher_integrationtest::safe_dispatcher::handling_errors (l1_gas: ~0, l1_data_gas: ~96, l2_gas: ~280000)
Tests: 1 passed, 0 failed, 0 ignored, 0 filtered out

📝 Note

It is not possible to catch errors that cause immediate termination of execution, e.g. calling a contract with a nonexistent address. A full list of such errors can be found here.

Similarly, you can handle the panics which use ByteArray as an argument (like an assert! or panic! macro)

// Necessary utility function import
use snforge_std::byte_array::try_deserialize_bytearray_error;
use snforge_std::{ContractClassTrait, DeclareResultTrait, declare};
use testing_smart_contracts_handling_errors::{
    IPanicContractSafeDispatcher, IPanicContractSafeDispatcherTrait,
};

#[test]
#[feature("safe_dispatcher")]
fn handling_string_errors() {
    let contract = declare("PanicContract").unwrap().contract_class();
    let (contract_address, _) = contract.deploy(@array![]).unwrap();
    let safe_dispatcher = IPanicContractSafeDispatcher { contract_address };

    match safe_dispatcher.do_a_string_panic() {
        Result::Ok(_) => panic!("Entrypoint did not panic"),
        Result::Err(panic_data) => {
            let str_err = try_deserialize_bytearray_error(panic_data.span()).expect('wrong format');

            assert(
                str_err == "This is panicking with a string, which can be longer than 31 characters",
                'wrong string received',
            );
        },
    };
}

You also could skip the de-serialization of the panic_data, and not use try_deserialize_bytearray_error, but this way you can actually use assertions on the ByteArray that was used to panic.

📝 Note

To operate with SafeDispatcher it's required to annotate its usage with #[feature("safe_dispatcher")].

There are 3 options:

• module-level declaration

  #[feature("safe_dispatcher")]
  mod my_module;

• function-level declaration

  #[feature("safe_dispatcher")]
  fn my_function() { ... }

• directly before the usage

  #[feature("safe_dispatcher")]
  let result = safe_dispatcher.some_function();

Expecting Test Failure

Sometimes the test code failing can be a desired behavior. Instead of manually handling it, you can simply mark your test as #[should_panic(...)]. See here for more details.