[Testing] Organizing test utilities package(s)

[bryanchriswhite]

Objective

Agree on a convention which we can document that establishes where to put common test code for reuse between packages.

Origin Document

Goals

• Agree on a conventional place to organize test utilities packages (e.g. pocket/internal/testing)
• Support de-duplication of test code across packages (i.e. test util pkgs are importable )
• Ensure test packages are excluded from non-test builds (e.g. using build constraints: //go:build test)

Deliverable

• Document testing utils package location somewhere (contributing, development, wiki?)
• Add testing utils package; start by moving prepareDNSResolverMock() from pocket/module_raintree_test.go (post [P2P] Refactor/consolidate P2P modules #576)

Non-goals / Non-deliverables

• Identifying additional duplication
• Refactoring unrelated test code

General issue deliverables

• Update the appropriate CHANGELOG(s)
• Update any relevant local/global README(s)
• Update relevant source code tree explanations
• Add or update any relevant or supporting mermaid diagrams

Testing Methodology

• Ensure test util package members are not present in symbol table of non-test builds:

  1. go build -o ./pokt-node ./app/pocket
  2. nm ./pokt-node | grep prepareDNSResolverMock should print nothing
     If prepareDNSResolverMock was included in the build, it will be listed in the symbol table which we can print with nm. Double-check the function names match, a typo could result in a false positive. Additionally, one can build a test binary (go test -c -o <output bin path> [-run <test func name>] <pkg>) on a test/pig which is known to import a test util function and ensure that it is present in the symbol table, as a control.

• All tests: make test_all

• LocalNet: verify a LocalNet is still functioning correctly by following the instructions at docs/development/README.md

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Creator: @bryanchriswhite
Co-Owners: @deblasis

[Olshansk]

@bryanchriswhite Just wanted to follow up with some additional context

1. Fully support this idea. It was always the plan but just never a priority.
2. Example: We copy-paste our functions similar to basePersistenceMock for mocking, which should 💯 % be shared in a common location.
3. We have some shared prod related utilities in shared/utils/* so shared/testing/* could follow the same pattern (for now).
4. In [Core] Follow industry standards for Golang project folder structure #379, @Gustavobelfort started implementing a standard go file structure (i.e. using internal where appropriate), but we never finished it. The initial approach can be found in [Core] Restructure repo to follow industry golang standards #412.
5. I want to know what we're documenting!

[bryanchriswhite]

f@Olshansk Haha - yea, I must have gotten distracted. Thanks for calling this out! 🙌 Sentence finished. ✔️ 😉

Thanks for the links! 🙌 I read through to golang-standards/project-layout which (great resource - thanks @Gustavobelfort) describes /internal like so:

Private application and library code. This is the code you don't want others importing in their applications or libraries. Note that this layout pattern is enforced by the Go compiler itself. See the Go 1.4 release notes for more details. Note that you are not limited to the top level internal directory. You can have more than one internal directory at any level of your project tree.

I would argue that given the convention, would better communicate our intention to put cross-package test code in an internal pkg. It would seem that it doesn't matter where that internal package lives; i.e., it gets the same treatment from the compiler and should be interpreted the same by humans. If you feel strongly about being downstream from /shared, which I can understand, I think /shared/internal or /shared/internal/testing could be a nice compromise.

EDIT: After mulling it over a bit more, I realize that /shared/internal would make the conventional package name internal which I would argue isn't great. Additionally, /shared/internal/testing would make the conventional package name testing, which collides with the stdlib testing package. My updated proposal is /shared/internal/testutils.

UPDATE:

There's a detail that the project-layout /internal README seems to have omitted but is the third sentence of the release doc section it refrences:

To create such a package, place it in a directory named internal or in a subdirectory of a directory named internal. When the go command sees an import of a package with internal in its path, it verifies that the package doing the import is within the tree rooted at the parent of the internal directory. For example, a package .../a/b/c/internal/d/e/f can be imported only by code in the directory tree rooted at .../a/b/c. It cannot be imported by code in .../a/b/g or in any other repository.

(e.g.: in pocket/p2p/module_raintree_test.go)

@Olshansk it would seem that to achieve the goal, we have no choice but to create a pocket/internal package. 🤔 My updated proposal would be to go with a single top-level /internal pkg for now and if we find that we want/need to split the package up and/or re-scope parts to module specific internal directories we can always do that later (and I assume for less than or equal effort than to go the other direction).

[bryanchriswhite]

It also looks like build tags/constraints have changed since the last time I looked:

Go versions 1.16 and earlier used a different syntax for build constraints, with a "// +build" prefix. The gofmt command will add an equivalent //go:build constraint when encountering the older syntax.

...

A build constraint, also known as a build tag, is a condition under which a file should be included in the package. Build constraints are given by a line comment that begins

//go:build
Build constraints may also be part of a file's name (for example, source_windows.go will only be included if the target > operating system is windows).

See 'go help buildconstraint' (https://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Build_constraints) for details.

[Olshansk]

@bryanchriswhite Should this ticket be in the Done state?