The GETH Simulated Backend

I am in the process of releasing my very "hacky" golang test environment that deep links into the go-ethereum code base.

I first developed it in 2017 to test the HelloGold GOLDX token which required simulating up to 20 years of admin fees and monthly reward allocations.

I am creating a series of really small easy to understand posts that both explain what I have done as well as force me to rewrite everything from the old chaotic hack to what is hopefully a far cleaner (but still hacky) version.

The single main component that makes the testing environment possible is the Simulated Backend built into the GETH source libraries. The simulated backend is a GETH Ethereum Virtual Machine that you can initialise, submit transactions to, seal blocks and, in fact, treat as if it were a private blockchain node.

So let's start with an insanely simple example - creating a simulated blockchain with a single account holding a specific amount of ether. I usually use a function called getClient to connect to whatever backend I am using.

To understand this 

var baseClient *backends.SimulatedBackend

func getClient() (client *backends.SimulatedBackend, err error) {
    if baseClient != nil {
        return baseClient, nil
    }
    funds, _ := etherUtils.StrToEther("10000.0")
    baseClient = backends.NewSimulatedBackend(core.GenesisAlloc{
        getAddress("banker"): {Balance: funds},
    }, 8000000)
    return baseClient, nil
}

We now have a backend with one account (which I called the banker) with a balance of 10,000 ether

you can check this with the following code

func main() {
    client, err := getClient()
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    bal, err := client.BalanceAt(context.Background(), getAddress("banker"), nil)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(etherUtils.EtherToStr(bal))
}

Assuming that you have added GETH, memorykeys and etherUtils , your environment should now set up the imports for you and you will see balance of 10k ether displayed

go run sbe.go keyUtils.go 
10000.000000000000000000

Now that we have the simulated back end working - in the next post we will get some transactions moving

Notes :

  1. https://github.com/DaveAppleton/memorykeys
  2. https://kauri.io/article/7a0c7497951548b8837634305e62977b/v2/generating-a-load-of-keys-for-testing-in-go
  3. https://github.com/DaveAppleton/etherUtils