sync_with_ping() only guarantees that the node has processed messages
it's received from the peer, not that block announcements from the node have
made it back to the peer. Replace sync_with_ping() with an explicit check that
the node's tip has been announced.
These are text files but their encoding does not depend on the locale.
Not all of them require utf8 but it is better to fix it at something
to remove potential unpredictability.
This is necessary on FreeBSD where no locale is set by default,
and apparently Python defaults not only the terminal encoding to the locale
but that of every text file. So without LOCALE environment it defaults text
file encoding to ASCII. This causes problems with e.g. `bitcoin.conf`.
Luckily the locale doesn't affect the default encoding for str.encode() and
bytes.decode() on Python 3, so this is the only change necessary.
This improves error reporting if `JSONRPCException` is not specifically caught
and ends up in Python's default backtrace handler.
Before:
```
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/.../projects/bitcoin/bitcoin/qa/rpc-tests/test_framework/authproxy.py", line 153, in __call__
raise JSONRPCException(response['error'])
test_framework.authproxy.JSONRPCException
```
After:
```
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/.../projects/bitcoin/bitcoin/qa/rpc-tests/test_framework/authproxy.py", line 152, in __call__
raise JSONRPCException(response['error'])
test_framework.authproxy.JSONRPCException: Unknown named parameter random (-8)
```
Python lambda use was incorrect.
sendcmpct messages need to be synchronized with RPC calls to generate().
Headers need to be synced (eg with getheaders) for cmpctblock announcements
to start.
Last test omitted sending a sendcmpct message.
waitfornewblock waits until a new block is received, or the timeout expires, then
returns the current block height/hash.
waitforblock waits for a specific blockhash, or until the timeout expires, then
returns the current block height/hash. If the target blockhash is the current
tip, it will return immediately.
waitforblockheight waits until the tip has reached a certain height or higher,
then returns the current height and hash.
waitforblockheight is used to avoid polling in the rpc tests.
John Newbery