Hardhat

Learn how to test on era-test-node with Hardhat.

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In the world of decentralized applications, the margin for error is remarkably narrow. A single mistake in a contract can have catastrophic implications. For those seeking an efficient method to test and refine their contracts, this guide showcases how to utilize Hardhat and era_test_node for all testing needs.

To test our contract, we are going to use Hardhat and era_test_node for rapid local development. In our tests we're going to use zksync-ethers to interact with the Greeter contract, and we'll use Mocha as our test runner.

Prerequisites

• zksync-cli installed from the zksync-cli section.

• era_test_node installed and running. See In-memory Node.

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Environment setup

1. Create a new project with the required dependencies and boilerplate paymaster implementations:

   zksync-cli create test-greeter

   Choose Hardhat + Solidity to setup the project repository. The contract for this guide exists under /contracts/Greeter.sol. Install dependencies:yarnnpmbun

   yarn install

2. Add the following additional dependencies:yarnnpmbun

   yarn add -D @nomicfoundation/hardhat-chai-matchers @nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers

3. Import @nomicfoundation/hardhat-chai-matchers into the hardhat.config.ts file:hardhat.config.ts

   import "@nomicfoundation/hardhat-chai-matchers";

   The @nomicfoundation/hardhat-chai-matchers plugin adds Ethereum specific capabilities to the Chai assertion library for testing smart contracts.

4. Start era_test_node:

   ./target/release/era_test_node run

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Run tests with Hardhat

Under the /test directory there is a main.test.ts . The initial test checks if our Greeter contract returns the set greeting.

/test/main.test.ts

import { expect } from "chai";
import { Wallet, Provider, Contract } from "zksync-ethers";
import * as hre from "hardhat";
import { Deployer } from "@matterlabs/hardhat-zksync";
import { zkSyncTestnet } from "../hardhat.config";

const RICH_WALLET_PK = "0x7726827caac94a7f9e1b160f7ea819f172f7b6f9d2a97f992c38edeab82d4110";

async function deployGreeter(deployer: Deployer): Promise<Contract> {
  const artifact = await deployer.loadArtifact("Greeter");
  return await deployer.deploy(artifact, ["Hi"]);
}

describe("Greeter", function () {
  it("Should return the new greeting once it's changed", async function () {
    const provider = new Provider(zkSyncTestnet.url);

    const wallet = new Wallet(RICH_WALLET_PK, provider);
    const deployer = new Deployer(hre, wallet);

    const greeter = await deployGreeter(deployer);

    expect(await greeter.greet()).to.eq("Hi");

    const setGreetingTx = await greeter.setGreeting("Hola, mundo!");
    // wait until the transaction is mined
    await setGreetingTx.wait();

    expect(await greeter.greet()).to.equal("Hola, mundo!");
  });
});

To run this test:

yarnnpmbun

yarn test

You should see the following output:

  Greeter
    ✔ Should return the new greeting once it's changed (174ms)

  1 passing (174ms)

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Expand test coverage

Our aim is comprehensive coverage. Here are the test scenarios we will cover:

1. Testing greet() function: Check the returned greeting.

2. Testing setGreeting() function: Verify the ability to update greetings.

3. Testing Insufficient Funds: Ensure transactions fail without enough funds.

4. Event Emission: Ensure an event is emitted when changing the greeting.

Each of these test cases will rely on a common setup, which involves creating a provider connected to the Validium Sepolia Testnet, initializing a wallet with a known private key, and deploying the Greeter contract.

Let's refactor our test file with the provided script:

test/main.test.ts

To run this test:

yarnnpmbun

yarn test

You should see the following output:

  Greeter
    ✔ Should return the new greeting once it's changed (211ms)
    ✔ Should set a new greeting and return it (2682ms)
    ✔ Should fail when insufficient funds (299ms)
    ✔ Should emit an event when the greeting is changed (2939ms)

  4 passing (6s)

Understanding the test file

Have a look at the test/main.test.ts file's imports:

test/main.test.ts

import { expect } from "chai";
import { Wallet, Provider, Contract } from "zksync-ethers";
import * as hre from "hardhat";
import { Deployer } from "@matterlabs/hardhat-zksync";
import { zkSyncTestnet } from "../hardhat.config";

This section imports all necessary utilities and configurations needed to run our tests.

• expect from Chai provides assertion functionalities for our tests.

• Wallet, Provider, and Contract from zksync-ethers help us with Validium functionalities like creating wallets and interacting with contracts.

• hre and Deployer give us hardhat specific functionalities for deploying and interacting with our contract.

• zkSyncTestnet from our hardhat configuration provides network details of our running era_test_node.

Contract Deployment Utility

async function deployGreeter(deployer: Deployer): Promise<Contract> { ... }

This utility function simplifies deploying the Greeter contract for our tests.

Main Test Suite

describe('Greeter', function () {
  ...
});

Here, we've declared our main test suite. Each test or nested suite inside provides specific scenarios or functionalities we want to test regarding the Greeter contract.

1. Initialization Before running any test, we initialize commonly used variables like the provider, wallet, deployer, and the greeter contract.

2. Test greet() function We check that the greet function returns the initial greeting of 'Hi' after deployment.

   it("Should return the new greeting once it's changed", async function () { ... });

3. Test setGreeting() function We test that setting a new greeting updates the contract's state as expected.

   it("Should set a new greeting and return it", async function () { ... });

4. Test insufficient funds Here, we simulate a scenario where an empty wallet (with no funds) tries to set a new greeting. We make use of the connect method on your zksync-ethers Contract object to connect it to a different account.

   it("Should fail when insufficient funds", async function () { ... });

5. Test event emission We test the emission of an event when the greeting changes in the contract making use of the hardhat-chai-matchers.

   it("Should emit an event when the greeting is changed", async function () { ... });