This modifies the newBlockNode function to accept the parent as an
argument to automatically connect the newly created node. When it is
not nil, the work sum will automatically be summed and the parent of the
new node will be set accordingly.
This simplifies the block node construction a bit and allows some
redundant code to be removed. It also paves the way for easier simpler
full block index construction in the future.
This separates the logic for populating the stake information in a block
node from the construction of the node in order to better delineate the
difference between the two and to pave the way for that information to
be stored separately in the database versus needing to load full blocks
to retrieve it.
This refactors the block index logic into a separate struct and
introduces an individual lock for it so it can be queried independent of
the chain lock.
It also modifies the `newBlockNode` function to accept nil for the
ticket spend information parameter and updates all of the test code that
doesn't require it to use nil.
This modifies the block node structure to include only the specifically
used fields, some of which in a more compact format, as opposed to
copying the entire header and updates all code and tests accordingly.
Not only is this a more efficient approach that helps pave the way for
future optimizations, it is also consistent with the upstream code which
helps minimize the differences to facilitate easier syncs due to less
merge conflicts.
In particular, since the merkle and stake roots, number of revocations,
size, nonce, and extradata fields aren't used currently, they are no
longer copied into the block node. Also, the block node already had a
height field, which is also in the header, so this change also removes
that duplication.
Another change is that the block node now stores the timestamp as an
int64 unix-style timestamp which is only 8 bytes versus the old
timestamp that was in the header which is a time.Time and thus 24 bytes.
It should be noted that future optimizations will very likely end up
adding most of the omitted header fields back to the block node as
individual fields so the headers can be efficiently reconstructed from
memory, however, these changes are still beneficial due to the ability
to decouple the block node storage format from the header struct which
allows more compact representations and reording of the fields for
optimal struct packing.
Ultimately, the need for the parent hash can also be removed, which will
save an additional 32 bytes which would not be possible without this
decoupling.
This adds a new function FindSpentTicketsInBlock that extracts all spent and
revoked tickets, plus the vote bits of a given block and uses that function
instead of the individual functions when loading a new node into the blockchain.
This improves startup time a bit, as the isSSGen, isSSRtx and determineTxType
are somewhat slow, as they need to decode the output script of the transactions.
Looping over the transactions once and doing a single test is faster.
Numbers for my computer:
```
| variation | mainnet | testnet |
| with patch | 23.7s | 42.6s |
| without patch | 35.9s | 118.0s |
```
This modifies the newFakeChain and newFakeNode functions to be easier to
work with and then updates the various tests that use them to
significantly simply them. It also removes the genesisBlockNode
function since it is no longer necessary due to the changes other
changes.
While here, it also improves the comments on the tests to better
describe what is being tested.
This implements a new stake difficulty algorithm along with a voting
agenda for all networks to change and a comprehensive set of tests. It
also implements estimation using the new algorithm for the
estimatestakediff RPC.
The following is an overview of the changes:
- Add new agenda to vote on changing the stake difficulty algorithm to
all networks
- The version on mainnet is version 4
- The version on testnet and simnet is version 5
- Modifies the stake difficulty calculation function to calculate the
difficulty based on the result of the vote
- Modifies the stake difficulty estimation function to calculate the
difficulty based on the result of the vote
- Makes the stake difficulty estimation function concurrent safe
- Calls it directly from the RPC server instead of going through block
manager
- Removes no longer needed code from the block manager
- Generate new version blocks and reject old version blocks after a
super majority has been reached
- New block version on mainnet is version 4
- New block version on testnet and simnet is version 5
- Add tests for the supply estimation used in the new algorithm
- Add tests for the new algorithm calculations
- Add tests for the estimation based on the new algorithm
This commit is the first stage of several that are planned to convert
the blockchain package into a concurrent safe package that will
ultimately allow support for multi-peer download and concurrent chain
processing. The goal is to update btcd proper after each step so it can
take advantage of the enhancements as they are developed.
In addition to the aforementioned benefit, this staged approach has been
chosen since it is absolutely critical to maintain consensus.
Separating the changes into several stages makes it easier for reviewers
to logically follow what is happening and therefore helps prevent
consensus bugs. Naturally there are significant automated tests to help
prevent consensus issues as well.
The main focus of this stage is to convert the blockchain package to use
the new database interface and implement the chain-related functionality
which it no longer handles. It also aims to improve efficiency in
various areas by making use of the new database and chain capabilities.
The following is an overview of the chain changes:
- Update to use the new database interface
- Add chain-related functionality that the old database used to handle
- Main chain structure and state
- Transaction spend tracking
- Implement a new pruned unspent transaction output (utxo) set
- Provides efficient direct access to the unspent transaction outputs
- Uses a domain specific compression algorithm that understands the
standard transaction scripts in order to significantly compress them
- Removes reliance on the transaction index and paves the way toward
eventually enabling block pruning
- Modify the New function to accept a Config struct instead of
inidividual parameters
- Replace the old TxStore type with a new UtxoViewpoint type that makes
use of the new pruned utxo set
- Convert code to treat the new UtxoViewpoint as a rolling view that is
used between connects and disconnects to improve efficiency
- Make best chain state always set when the chain instance is created
- Remove now unnecessary logic for dealing with unset best state
- Make all exported functions concurrent safe
- Currently using a single chain state lock as it provides a straight
forward and easy to review path forward however this can be improved
with more fine grained locking
- Optimize various cases where full blocks were being loaded when only
the header is needed to help reduce the I/O load
- Add the ability for callers to get a snapshot of the current best
chain stats in a concurrent safe fashion
- Does not block callers while new blocks are being processed
- Make error messages that reference transaction outputs consistently
use <transaction hash>:<output index>
- Introduce a new AssertError type an convert internal consistency
checks to use it
- Update tests and examples to reflect the changes
- Add a full suite of tests to ensure correct functionality of the new
code
The following is an overview of the btcd changes:
- Update to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Temporarily remove all code related to the transaction index
- Temporarily remove all code related to the address index
- Convert all code that uses transaction stores to use the new utxo
view
- Rework several calls that required the block manager for safe
concurrency to use the chain package directly now that it is
concurrent safe
- Change all calls to obtain the best hash to use the new best state
snapshot capability from the chain package
- Remove workaround for limits on fetching height ranges since the new
database interface no longer imposes them
- Correct the gettxout RPC handler to return the best chain hash as
opposed the hash the txout was found in
- Optimize various RPC handlers:
- Change several of the RPC handlers to use the new chain snapshot
capability to avoid needlessly loading data
- Update several handlers to use new functionality to avoid accessing
the block manager so they are able to return the data without
blocking when the server is busy processing blocks
- Update non-verbose getblock to avoid deserialization and
serialization overhead
- Update getblockheader to request the block height directly from
chain and only load the header
- Update getdifficulty to use the new cached data from chain
- Update getmininginfo to use the new cached data from chain
- Update non-verbose getrawtransaction to avoid deserialization and
serialization overhead
- Update gettxout to use the new utxo store versus loading
full transactions using the transaction index
The following is an overview of the utility changes:
- Update addblock to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Update findcheckpoint to use the new database and chain interfaces
- Remove the dropafter utility which is no longer supported
NOTE: The transaction index and address index will be reimplemented in
another commit.
This commit contains the entire btcchain repository along with several
changes needed to move all of the files into the blockchain directory in
order to prepare it for merging. This does NOT update btcd or any of the
other packages to use the new location as that will be done separately.
- All import paths in the old btcchain test files have been changed to
the new location
- All references to btcchain as the package name have been changed to
blockchain
