On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 3:27 PM, Andy Parkins <andypark...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tuesday 30 April 2013 19:04:59 Jeff Garzik wrote: > >> The format currently used by bitcoind would be just fine -- >> blocks/blkNNNN.dat for raw data, size-limited well below 1GB. Just >> need to add a small metadata download, and serve the raw block files. > > That doesn't seem very generic. It's tied far too much to the current storage > format of bitcoind.
Hardly. The storage format is bitcoin protocol wire format, plus a tiny header. It is supported in multiple applications already, and is the most efficient storage format for bitcoin protocol blocks. > Wouldn't it be better to add support for more bitcoin-protocol-oriented HTTP > requests? Then any client can supply the same interface, rather than being > forced to create blkNNNN.dat on the fly? You don't have to create anything on the fly, if you store blocks in their native P2P wire protocol format. > http://bitcoind.example.com/block/BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB > http://bitcoind.example.com/tx/TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT > http://bitcoind.example.com/block/oftx/TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT > http://bitcoind.example.com/peers > http://bitcoind.example.com/peer/nnn > > Essentially: block explorer's raw mode but in every bitcoind. The hardest > operation for light clients is finding out the block that contains a > particular transaction -- something that bitcoind already knows. This is a whole new client interface. It's fun to dream this up, but it is far outside the scope of an efficient HTTP protocol that downloads blocks. Your proposal is closer to a full P2P rewrite over HTTP (or a proxy thereof). -- Jeff Garzik exMULTI, Inc. jgar...@exmulti.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introducing AppDynamics Lite, a free troubleshooting tool for Java/.NET Get 100% visibility into your production application - at no cost. Code-level diagnostics for performance bottlenecks with <2% overhead Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes. http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_ap1 _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development