hivechain

README

hivechain

Hivechain creates a non-empty blockchain for testing purposes. To facilitate good tests, the created chain excercises many protocol features, including:

• different types of transactions
• diverse set of contracts with interesting storage, code, etc.
• contracts to create known log events

Running hivechain

Here is an example command line invocation of the tool:

hivechain generate -fork-interval 6 -tx-interval 1 -length 500 -outdir chain -outputs genesis,chain,headfcu

The command creates a 500-block chain where a new fork gets enabled every six blocks, and every block contains one 'modification' (i.e. transaction). A number of output files will be created in the chain/ directory:

• genesis.json contains the genesis block specification
• chain.rlp has the blocks in binary RLP format

To see all generator options, run:

hivechain generate -help

-outputs

Different kinds of output files can be created based on the generated chain. The available output formats are documented below.

accounts

Creates accounts.json containing accounts and corresponding private keys.

chain, powchain

chain creates chain.rlp containing the chain blocks.

genesis

This writes the genesis.json file containing a go-core style genesis spec. Note this file includes the fork block numbers/timestamps.

forkenv

This writes forkenv.json with fork configuration environment variables for hive tests.

headblock

This creates headblock.json with a dump of the head header.

headstate

This writes headstate.json, a dump of the complete state of the head block.

txinfo

The txinfo.json file contains an object with a key for each block modifier, and the value being information about the activity of the modifier.

Documentation

Overview

The hivechain command assists with generating blockchain data for testing purposes.

The 'generate' subcommand mines a new chain:

hivechain generate -length 10 -genesis ./genesis.json -blocktime 30 -output .

The 'print' subcommand displays blocks in a chain.rlp file:

hivechain print -v chain.rlp

The 'print-genesis' subcommand displays the block header fields of a genesis.json file:

hivechain print-genesis genesis.json

The 'trim' subcommand extracts a range of blocks from a chain.rlp file:

hivechain trim -from 10 -to 100 chain.rlp newchain.rlp