How to Connect to the Casper Network using Ruby

#blockchain #ruby #rubygems #dapps

Overview

The Ruby programming language has a huge fanbase. Ruby was developed by its creator with an intention to invent a language developers can enjoy learning and using. Ruby has been largely accepted by developers all around the world since its launch, in fact, the biggest tech communities in many cities consist of Ruby developers. In this guide, we will learn how to connect to the Casper Network using a Ruby gem (or package) called casper-ruby-sdk .

By using casper-ruby-sdk, we can make direct JSON RPC calls to a node from any Ruby application. casper-ruby-sdk also boasts numerous other functionalities listed in their official Github repo:

Get the list of Peer objects
Current Status of the node
Get Block Transfers
Get Block By Hash
Get Block By Height
Get Era Info
Get State Item
Get Dictionary Item
Get Account Balance
Get Auction State
Put Deploy
Serialization
Key Management

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look into how we can install and interact with this package by setting it up locally on our machine and then retrieving the block height from a node on Casper Network. Let’s get started!

Prerequisites

Ruby version >= 3.0.2
A code editor
Terminal aka Command Line

Installing the casper_network Gem

Before installing the gem, let us first ensure that Ruby is installed. Simply open a terminal and run:

ruby -v

If this returns a version 3.0.2 or higher, you’re all set! If the command is not recognized, then you will need to install Ruby. If it is and the version is older than 3.0.2, you will need to use a newer one. Note: the version of Ruby that ships with macOS is usually for Apple’s own use and it is best not to change it. You can make changes to this version, however, instead, we suggest using rbenv or RVM (Ruby Version Manager) to manage a separate Ruby version, which will be installed into a sandbox in your home directory. You can make changes to this version without worrying about changing the system’s Ruby version. For more information, read this external guide from mac.install.

Once you’re ready to move on, we can install the casper_network gem. This gem will allow us to connect to the Casper blockchain Network using the Ruby language. We can install it from the command line using the RubyGems package manager:

gem install casper_network

How can we access a block and its attributes in Casper Network?

Let’s start with a simple example and then continue with a detailed one to show how to access a block and block members.

Create a new file, script.rb, through your Terminal or directly in your file system. If you choose to use a Terminal, you can use this command:

echo > script.rb

Open script.rb in a code editor of choice and add the following code:

You can choose an IP address among peers list from https://testnet.cspr.live/tools/peers

Replace the YOUR_CASPER_NETWORK_NODE_IP_ADDRESS with one of these IP addresses available in the peers list.

Let us break down the code:

Line 1: We are importing the casper_network gem we installed earlier.
Line 3: We are creating a new Casper Network RPC client, passing in our Casper Network node IP.
Line 6: block_hash that taken from the Casper Network. You can select a block_hash in here
Line 8: We are getting the latest block data using the chain_get_block method and store retrieved data to the block object.
Line 11: We are printing the era id in which this block was created.
Line 14: We are printing the height of the block.

Run the Script

Execute the script by running the following in your Terminal:

ruby script.rb

After running this command, you will be able to see era id and height information of the block as outputs. It is done! We’ve successfully connected to the Casper Network by using Ruby.

Block Structure

A block in Casper Network consists of the following attributes

hash
header
body
proofs

If you want to learn more about block structure and its properties in Casper Network, please click here.

Let’s take a deep dive into the block and block properties in Casper Network with another example in ruby.

Create a new file, block.rb and add the following code:

Then Execute the block.rb by running the following command in your terminal:

ruby block.rb

After running this command, you will be able to see outputs similar to following.

#<Casper::Entity::Block:0x0000000003a81648>
53943d39b0ea69dbdd3e255cfafbe0a3d610ccd0e83d86c83ee6d2f623b92e84
#<Casper::Entity::BlockHeader:0x0000000003a815a8>
f702dc5f9b3b09bfd019fadd48892f9fab35a07c8da93ae17cf241e15f4e5ec2
fb3282f8d0b14d72ebdf366ade5851e557a8bcf0fbc4c82a96f1b13add822c80
81c671e614566b5d22693b9dcf3cd09c008f3b679e4fdc7505c5560d49a23cea
false
8be3cba85847dd141720e5634e4706c42e1d7487d96916bf3630131891180b75

2022-11-22T15:58:33.984Z
7098
1275281
1.4.8
#<Casper::Entity::BlockBody:0x0000000003a81508>
0157f18d47996f1bbb059f2043bafea9c218d7f50e4d4dd508bc3661844300c3d1
5cb466be5d7aaf875fb3cb34164f1bc9afb5f7b78435ae0c949be96b01701a9b
proofs[0]: #<Casper::Entity::BlockProof:0x0000000003a81440>
public_key: 01018525deae6091abccab6704a0fa44e12c495eec9e8fe6929862e1b75580e715
signature: 017fabbfb10943e0dcedcb405f5cf5956b7ea62f930a816c6ae9d91a3785dfce98245c89278cf8bdbf5351a99116c381d36b2bc358cb9e421e26a5d2b9b99ea708
proofs[1]: #<Casper::Entity::BlockProof:0x0000000003a813f0>
public_key: 0102112a711eb3bee9043ebf036fbdfd4482f0e37d1a65627e09922943713973f8
signature: 01388784b45165c6d171d9e700ae467185efab89f66233d6490dabf421f20bc5305af36d269dac180c73360888c352fb8527b828eace879043ca92b53af043ee0c
proofs[2]: #<Casper::Entity::BlockProof:0x0000000003a813c8>
public_key: 01028e248170a7f328bf7a04696d8f271a1debb54763e05e537eefc1cf24531bc7
signature: 011b1c673488c7c8e1605eb85bd550e52753c3649a342fdca611ad55c629203f23afa7c5a0c3bdcbaf4b79d0a45adee23f71113db89f72c0f666a8c1b4d7bead07
proofs[3]: #<Casper::Entity::BlockProof:0x0000000003a813a0>
public_key: 0106618e1493f73ee0bc67ffbad4ba4e3863b995d61786d9b9a68ec7676f697981
signature: 01a1c62d9db3e376f9f4ab2c02b75f2574fabe14ddb66639a805c1c26bb8968185224c0a9631574366de1f5cab0c6458482a9035fba7356d8b5d5d18176fc2060c
.
.
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To summarize, I tried to explain how to access a block and block items in Casper Network by using Ruby in this article.

Casper Ruby SDK is an open source project funded by DEVxDAO. I would like to thank DEVxDAO for funding the SDK.

References:
https://casper.network/en-us/
https://docs.casperlabs.io/design/serialization-standard/#serialization-standard-block
https://docs.rs/casper-node/latest/casper_node/
https://github.com/saitgulmez/casper-ruby-sdk
https://www.quicknode.com/guides/ethereum-development/how-to-connect-to-the-ethereum-network-using-ruby