Test accounts

In tests, you can create and use accounts in two ways:

• Generate test accounts by passing a seed string to sp.test_account. This function returns an object with the address of the test account in its address property.
• Create objects of type sp.address.

Test accounts generated with sp.test_account have implicit account addresses (starting with tz1). For more information about address types, see Address Types.

To simulate calling a smart contract from a certain account, pass the address of the account (either the test account's address property or the sp.address object) as the _sender or _source property in the call to the entrypoint, as in this example:

@sp.module
def main():
    class MyContract(sp.Contract):
        def __init__(self, admin):
            self.data.adminAccount = admin

        @sp.entrypoint
        def setAdmin(self, newAdmin):
            assert sp.sender == self.data.adminAccount, "Must be admin"
            self.data.adminAccount = newAdmin


@sp.add_test()
def test():
    # Create test accounts
    alice = sp.test_account("Alice")
    bob = sp.address("tz1QCVQinE8iVj1H2fckqx6oiM85CNJSK9Sx")

    scenario = sp.test_scenario("Admin test", main)
    contract = main.MyContract(alice.address)
    scenario += contract

    # Verify that non-admin account can't change the admin
    contract.setAdmin(bob, _sender=bob, _valid=False)
    # Verify that the admin can change the admin
    contract.setAdmin(
        bob,
        _sender=alice,
    )
    scenario.verify(contract.data.adminAccount == bob)

For more information about calling entrypoints in tests, see Testing contracts.

TIP

Using real addresses in test scenarios can simplify deploying contracts. For example, if you use your real account address as the administrator of a contract and compile the contract, the output storage file has your address in it. You can then use that compiled storage file as the initial storage value for the contract.

However, if you want to create or verify cryptographic signatures with sp.make_signature and sp.check_signature in tests, you must use test accounts and not sp.address types.

sp.test_account(seed) → test_account

Create a deterministic keypair from a seed string. This function always creates the same keypair for the same seed.

# seed is `Alice`
alice = sp.test_account("Alice")

This command produces an object with the following properties:

Property	Type	Description
alice.address	sp.address	Gives the public-key-hash
alice.public_key_hash	sp.key_hash	Gives the public-key-hash
alice.public_key	sp.key	Gives the public-key
alice.secret_key	sp.string	Gives the secret-key

sp.make_signature(secret_key, message, message_format = 'Raw') → sp.signature

Creates a signature compatible with the sp.check_signature(...) function.

The message_format parameter accepts two values:

• Hex, in which case the message is interpreted as a hexadecimal string
• Raw (the default) in which case the message is a sp.bytes value, usually the result of an sp.pack call.

For an example of creating and checking signatures with sp.make_signature, see the "Signatures" template in the SmartPy online IDE.

INFO

You can't use sp.test_account or sp.make_signature in smart contracts because Michelson can't manipulate secret keys.