Running regtest as described allows you to start from scratch with an empty chain, empty wallet, and no existing state.
An effective way to use regtest is to start a functional test and insert a python debug breakpoint.
You can set a breakpoint in a test by adding import pdb; pdb.set_trace() at the desired stopping point; when the script reaches this point you’ll see the debugger’s (Pdb) prompt, at which you can type help and see and do all kinds of useful things.
While the (Python) test is paused, you can still control the node using bitcoin-cli.
First you need to look up the data directory for the node(s), as below:
$ ps alx | grep bitcoind
0 1000 57478 57476 20 0 1031376 58604 pipe_r SLl+ pts/10 0:06 /g/bitcoin/src/bitcoind -datadir=/tmp/bitcoin_func_test_ovsi15f9/node0 -logtimemicros -debug (...)
0 1000 57479 57476 20 0 965964 58448 pipe_r SLl+ pts/10 0:06 /g/bitcoin/src/bitcoind -datadir=/tmp/bitcoin_func_test_ovsi15f9/node1 -logtimemicros -debug (...)With the -datadir path you can look at the bitcoin.conf files within the data directories to see what config options are being specified for the test (there’s always regtest=1) in addition to the runtime options, which is a good way to learn about some advanced uses of regtest.
In addition to this, we can use the -datadir= option with bitcoin-cli to control specific nodes, e.g.:
$ src/bitcoin-cli -datadir=/tmp/bitcoin_func_test_ovsi15f9/node0 getblockchaininfo