Explore the mysteries of the block format at bitblockexplorer.com

[svk]

Yep as Xeroc said my site works using the RPC api to extract the data which is then saved in my own database for easier processing. I would love to have a real blockchain parser though, but I'm not sure I could code one myself as I'm not really well versed in Python and can only read C++.

Anyway good job, looking forward to seeing the documentation!

[xeroc]

awesome .. /me wants to know more!

so you actually have a question or is this just an informational thread?

btw, the other block explorer is bitsharesblocks.com and works indeed using the RPC interface.

[theoretical]

I'm very slowly working on the bounty for documenting the blockchain format.

In order for me to be sure I understand it, I'm writing a parser for the raw block format in Python.  You can see it in action at http://bitblockexplorer.com:8888/block/55555?format=html+hex

The website is obviously very raw and untested.  There is absolutely no processing of transactions or signatures.  Someone else has a better blockchain website (I can't remember the URL offhand), and there is of course a block explorer in the client code.

But I think all of them work internally by calling into the JSON-RPC API of the client.  The internal setup of bitblockexplorer.com is a little different -- I communicate "at arms' length" with the BitShares client by using the chain server protocol to download the raw binary block data, which I then parse into a database.