What is the pattern for handling throw on a Solidity contract in tests

Question

I have a function on a Solidity contract that does a throw. Eg.

   function do(x,y)  {
        if ( msg.sender != owner )
            throw;
        // ...
   }

In the Truffle environment I have a test js something like:

//.... part of a promise chain
       .then(
            function (_bool0) {
                assert.isTrue(_bool0,"whoops - should be true");
                return contract.do( "okdoke" , {from: accounts[1]} );
            }).then(
            function (tx_id) {
                //..
                done();
            }
    // ...

The return contract.do() causes the condition that results in the throw. Which produces the following in the Truffle test output for this test:

Error: VM Exception while executing transaction: invalid JUMP

Answer 1

The zeppelin project as an awesome way to do just that:

it("should fail to withdraw", async () => {
    try {
      await receiver.withdrawToken(0x0);
      assert.fail('should have thrown before');
    } catch(error) {
      assertJump(error);
    }
  });

function assertJump(error) {
  assert.isAbove(error.message.search('invalid opcode'), -1, 'Invalid opcode error must be returned');
}

https://github.com/OpenZeppelin/zeppelin-solidity/blob/master/test/Ownable.js To see a full example

Answer 2

Just to let everyone know, I came across this problem as well and have been using the following:

function getTransactionError(func) {
  return Promise.resolve().then(func)
    .then(function(txid) {
      var tx = web3.eth.getTransaction(txid);
      var txr = web3.eth.getTransactionReceipt(txid);
      if (txr.gasUsed === tx.gas) throw new Error("all gas used");
    })
    .catch(function(err) {
      return err;
    });
}

Answer 3

In my opinion the cleanest way is:

it("should revert", async function () {
    try {
        await deployedInstance.myOperation1();
        assert.fail("The transaction should have thrown an error");
    }
    catch (err) {
        assert.include(err.message, "revert", "The error message should contain 'revert'");
    }
});