go-ethereum as a library ?

Created on 16 Jul 2017 · 3Comments · Source: ethereum/go-ethereum

The website states that

Go Ethereum is available ...as a library that you can embed in your Go... projects

However after pulling go-ethereum I find that difficult, particularly with the use of 'vendored' librairies in the arguments of functions that could constitute the "API".
For instance, the use of cli.Context from gopkg.in/urfave/cli.v1, which is vendored, in a a few utility functions, which therefore cannot be called (https://github.com/golang/go/issues/15162)

Am I missing something ?
Is there any guide to explain how to use geth as a library ? (API, packages that should be used / not used)

Source

bgrieder

Most helpful comment

Thanks. I more or less managed to figure that one out. I guess a minimal example goes along the lines of

func Start() {

    nodeConfig := node.DefaultConfig

    n, err := node.New(&nodeConfig)
    if err != nil {
        utils.Fatalf("Failed to create the protocol node: %v", err)
    }

    ethConfig := eth.DefaultConfig
    utils.RegisterEthService(n, &ethConfig)

    whisperConfig := whisper.DefaultConfig
    utils.RegisterShhService(n, &whisperConfig)

    // start the stack and watch for SIG events
    utils.StartNode(n)

    // wait for explicit shutdown
    n.Wait()

}

bgrieder on 17 Jul 2017

👍4

All 3 comments

Don't try to use stuff from the cmd folder. Those are only useful to create the geth binary and associated tools. You can use anything else from go-ethereum and it should just work.

karalabe on 17 Jul 2017

Thanks. I more or less managed to figure that one out. I guess a minimal example goes along the lines of

func Start() {

    nodeConfig := node.DefaultConfig

    n, err := node.New(&nodeConfig)
    if err != nil {
        utils.Fatalf("Failed to create the protocol node: %v", err)
    }

    ethConfig := eth.DefaultConfig
    utils.RegisterEthService(n, &ethConfig)

    whisperConfig := whisper.DefaultConfig
    utils.RegisterShhService(n, &whisperConfig)

    // start the stack and watch for SIG events
    utils.StartNode(n)

    // wait for explicit shutdown
    n.Wait()

}

bgrieder on 17 Jul 2017

👍4

how about all other functions like creating accounts and managing the accounts? @bgrieder