= Bitcoin-ruby-blockchain

This is a bitcoin blockchain storage based on bitcoin-ruby with support for several different backends and database adapters.

It also provides {Bitcoin::Blockchain::Validation Validation} functionality to ensure that only valid data is stored.

== Backends

The +:archive+ and +:utxo+ backends can both use any SQL database supported by sequel.

=== Archive

The {Bitcoin::Blockchain::Backends::Archive Archive} backend stores a complete, fully-indexed blockchain.

This backend produces a very large DB, but holds the data in a completely normalized schema and can be queried arbitrarily.

Postgres is the recommended adapter since it is the most optimized.

Webbtc.com[http://webbtc.com] is based on this backend, and you can grab a postgres dump from http://dumps.webbtc.com to get started more quickly (hours instead of days).

=== Utxo

The {Bitcoin::Blockchain::Backends::Utxo Utxo} backend stores only the utxos ("Unspent TX Outputs") needed to validate the blockchain on its own.

This backend produces a much smaller DB than the :archive backend, but can only be queried for addresses it has been told to watch previously.

=== Configuration

Specify which sequel adapter and database to use like this:

sqlite:/ # sqlite in-memory database sqlite://bitcoin.db # sqlite db in current directory sqlite:///tmp/bitcoin.db # sqlite with absolute path postgres:/bitcoin # local postgres database postgres://:@:/ # remote postgres db with authentication

== Installation

We assume you already have a ruby 1.9 or 2.0 compatible interpreter and rubygems environment.

gem install bitcoin-ruby-blockchain

Or add it to your Gemfile and

require 'bitcoin/blockchain'

== Usage

Initialize a blockchain with the desired backend and DB adapter:

use :utxo backend with in-memory sqlite DB

chain = Bitcoin::Blockchain::Utxo.new(db: "sqlite:/")

use :archive backend with local postgres DB

chain = Bitcoin::Blockchain::Archive.new(db: "postgres:/bitcoin")

Give it a {Bitcoin::Protocol::Block Block} to store:

chain.store_block(block) #=> [height, branch]

And query objects from the blockchain:

chain.get_head #=> current best block chain.get_height #=> height of current best block block = chain.get_block(block_hash) tx = chain.get_tx(tx_hash)

See {Bitcoin::Blockchain::Backends::Base} for a complete list of methods common to all backends.

These return {Bitcoin::Blockchain::Models} objects, which are like {Bitcoin::Protocol} objects with extra features to query related data from the blockchain, like so:

block.get_prev_block #=> the previous block this one is based upon block.get_next_block #=> the next block based upon this one tx.get_block #=> the block this tx is in tx.confirmations #=> number of blocks in the main chain that confirm this tx tx.in[0].get_prev_out #=> the previous output that is spent by this input tx.out[0].get_next_in #=> the next input that is spending this output

== Documentation

Always trying to improve, any help appreciated! If anything is unclear to you, let us know!

Documentation is generated using yardoc:

rake doc

The specs are also a good place to see how things are supposed to work.

== Specs

The specs can be run with

rake

or, if you want to run a single spec

rspec spec/blockchain/models_spec.rb

Coverage information is automatically generated and can be found in +coverage/+ after the test run.

== Contributing

Any help or feedback is greatly appreciated! Just open an issue, submit a pull-request, or come to #bitcoin-ruby on irc.freenode.net if you want to chat.

== License

This software is licensed under the terms of the MIT license. See {file:COPYING} for details.