Difficulty Tests

Found in \Basic Tests\difficulty*.json files. This tests are designed to just check the difficulty formula of a block.

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

described at [EIP2](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-2.mediawiki) 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)

Basic 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