ethrpc

JavaScript RPC communication with the Ethereum network.

Usage

ethrpc can be installed using npm:

$ npm install ethrpc

After installing, to use it with Node, just require it:

var rpc = require("ethrpc");

A minified, browserified file dist/ethrpc.min.js is included for use in the browser. Including this file simply attaches an ethrpc object to window:

<script src="dist/ethrpc.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Basic RPC

The raw method allows you to send in commands that won't be parsed/mangled by ethrpc. (Similar to sending RPC requests with cURL.)

rpc.raw("net_peerCount");
"0x10"

rpc.eth("gasPrice");
"0x015f90"

Many commonly used functions have named wrappers. For example, blockNumber fetches the current block number:

rpc.blockNumber();
217153

Contract upload and download

publish broadcasts (uploads) a compiled contract to the network, and returns the contract's address:

var address = rpc.publish("0x603980600b6000396044567c01000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000006000350463643ceff9811415603757600a60405260206040f35b505b6000f3");
// address:
"0xf4549459f9ef8c8898c054a7fc37c286831c2ced"

read downloads code from a contract already on the Ethereum network:

var evm = rpc.read("0x5204f18c652d1c31c6a5968cb65e011915285a50");
// evm:
"0x7c010000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000060003504636ffa1caa81141560415760043560405260026040510260605260206060f35b50"

Contract methods: call and sendTransaction

The invoke method executes a method in a contract already on the network. It can broadcast transactions to the network and/or capture return values by calling the contract method(s) locally.

// The method called here doubles its input argument.
rpc.invoke({
   to: "0x5204f18c652d1c31c6a5968cb65e011915285a50",
   method: "double",
   signature: "i",
   params: 22121, // parameter value(s)
   send: false,
   returns: "number"
});
// returns:
44242

Transaction fields are as follows:

Required:

• to: <contract address> (hexstring)
• method: <function name> (string)
• signature: <function signature, e.g. "iia"> (string)
• params: <parameters passed to the function>

Optional:

• send: <true to sendTransaction, false to call (default)>
• from: <sender's address> (hexstring; defaults to the coinbase account)
• returns: <"array", "int", "BigNumber", or "string" (default)>

The params and signature fields are required if your function accepts parameters; otherwise, these fields can be excluded. The returns field is used only to format the output, and does not affect the actual RPC request.

invoke currently only works for Serpent contracts. The extra datatypes included by Solidity are not (yet) supported by the augur-abi encoder. The augur-abi encoder requires all parameters to be type string, int256, or int256[].

Tests

Unit tests are included in test/ethrpc.js, and can be run using npm:

$ npm test