getting-started.org

Getting started

• Prerequisites
• Dependencies
• Installation
• Testing
• Directory structure

Prerequisites

Operating system	Linux Arch	rolling release
Programming language	Go	v1.23.2
Linux shell	Fish	v3.7.1

Dependencies

ProtoBuf compiler	protobuf	v28.2
ProtoBuf Go plugin	google.golang.org/protobuf	v1.35.1
ProtoBuf gRPC Go plugin	google.golang.org/grpc	v1.68.0
Keccak256 hash, Argon2 KDF	golang.org/x/crypto	v0.29.0
Secp256k1 elliptic curve	github.com/dustinxie/ecc	latest
CLI library	github.com/spf13/cobra	v1.8.1

Installation

• Install the Go programming language and the Fish Linux shell

yay -S go fish

• Install the ProtoBuf compiler, the ProtoBuf Go plugin, and the ProtoBuf gRPC Go plugin

yay -S protobuf
go install google.golang.org/protobuf/cmd/protoc-gen-go@latest
go install google.golang.org/grpc/cmd/protoc-gen-go-grpc@latest

• Clone the Go blockchain repository, generate the gRPC client and server stubs, and build the blockchain executable bcn

git clone https://github.com/volodymyrprokopyuk/go-blockchain.git
cd go-blockchain
go get ./...
./grpc.fish
go build -o bcn

• Set up the Fish completions for the blockchain executable bcn

cp bcn $GOPATH
./bcn completion fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/bcn.fish

Testing

• Run the whole test suite storing the test coverage to a file

go test -v -cover -coverprofile=coverage.cov ./... -run .

• Show the HTML test coverage report in a browser

go tool cover -html=coverage.cov

Directory structure

• chain/ defines the core blockchain types
  • account.go defines the address and the account types
  • block.go defines the block and the signed block types
  • event.go defines the event type
  • genesis.go defines the genesis and the signed genesis types
  • merkle.go defines the Merkle hash, the Merkle prove, and the Merkle verify algorithms
  • state.go defines the state type
  • tx.go defines the hash, the transaction, and the signed transaction types
• cli/ defines the CLI of the blockchain for clients
  • account.go defines the account create and the account balance commands
  • block.go defines the block search command
  • chain.go defines the main bcn command
  • node.go defines the node start and the node subscribe commands
  • tx.go defines the transaction sign, the transaction send, and the transaction search commands
• doc/ defines the documentation of this blockchain
• node/ defines the key components of the blockchain node
  • blockproposer.go defines the block proposer type
  • eventstream.go defines the event stream type
  • msgrelay.go defines the message relay generic type
  • node.go defines the node type
  • peerdiscovery.go defines the peer discovery type
  • statesync.go defines the state sync type
  • rpc/ defines and implements the gRPC services and methods
    • account.proto defines the gRPC account service and methods
    • accountsrv.go implements the gRPC account service
    • block.proto defines the gRPC block service and methods
    • blocksrv.go implements the gRPC block service
    • node.proto defines the gRPC node service and methods
    • nodesrv.go implements the gRPC node service
    • tx.proto defines the gRPC transaction service and methods
    • txsrv.go implements the gRPC transaction service
• client.fish defines the txSignAndSend helper function for clients
• grpc.fish compiles the definitions of the gRPC services and methods
• main.go defines the main entry point to the bcn blockchain executable