Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog (modification: no type change headlines) and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

3.2.1 - 2021-04-09

Fixed BlockData interface transactions typing for EIP-2930 typed txs, PR #1185

3.2.0 - 2021-03-18

Berlin HF Support

This release gets the Block library ready for the berlin HF by adding support for EIP2718 Typed Transactions. Transaction objects are now created with the new TransactionFactory introduced with the @ethereumjs/tx v3.1.0 release which chooses the correct tx type for the data. The initial tx release supports the old legacy transactions and the newly added EIP2930 Access List Transaction Type, see PR #1048.

Please note that the default HF is still set to istanbul. You therefore need to explicitly set the hardfork parameter for instantiating a Block instance with a berlin HF activated:

import { Block } from 'ethereumjs-block'
import Common from '@ethereumjs/common'
const common = new Common({ chain: 'mainnet', hardfork: 'berlin' })
const block = Block.fromBlockData({}, { common })

EthereumJS Libraries - Typed Transactions Readiness

If you are using this library in conjunction with other EthereumJS libraries make sure to minimally have the following library versions installed for typed transaction support:

@ethereumjs/common v2.2.0
@ethereumjs/tx v3.1.0
@ethereumjs/block v3.2.0
@ethereumjs/blockchain v5.2.0
@ethereumjs/vm v5.2.0

Other Changes

Added support for very large chain IDs when using Block cliqueSigner() address recovery, PR #1139
Fixed a TS compilation failure on install relating to ethereumjs-util v7.0.9, PR #1136

3.1.0 - 2021-02-22

Clique/PoA Support

This release introduces Clique/PoA support for the Block library, see the main PR #1032 as well as the follow-up PRs #1074 and PR #1088. The BlockHeader.validate() function now properly validates the various Clique/PoA-specific properties (extraData checks and others, see API documentation) and BlockHeader.validateConsensus() can be used to properly validate that a Clique/PoA block has the correct signature.

For sealing a block on instantiation there is a new cliqueSigner constructor option:

const cliqueSigner = Buffer.from('PRIVATE_KEY_HEX_STRING', 'hex')
const block = Block.fromHeaderData(headerData, { cliqueSigner })

Additionally there are the following new utility methods for Clique/PoA related functionality in the BlockHeader class:

BlockHeader.validateCliqueDifficulty(blockchain: Blockchain): boolean
BlockHeader.cliqueSigHash()
BlockHeader.cliqueIsEpochTransition(): boolean
BlockHeader.cliqueExtraVanity(): Buffer
BlockHeader.cliqueExtraSeal(): Buffer
BlockHeader.cliqueEpochTransitionSigners(): Address[]
BlockHeader.cliqueVerifySignature(signerList: Address[]): boolean
BlockHeader.cliqueSigner(): Address

See the API docs for a detailed documentation. Note that these methods will throw if called in a non-Clique/PoA context.

Other Changes

The Common instance passed is now copied to avoid side-effects towards the outer common instance on HF updates, PR #1089
Fixed a bug where txs have been created with the wrong HF when hardforkByBlockNumber is used along with the static constructors, PR #1089
Fixed a bug where Common has not been passed to the returned block in the blockFromRpc() method, PR #1032

3.0.0 - 2020-11-24

New Package Name

Attention! This new version is part of a series of EthereumJS releases all moving to a new scoped package name format. In this case the library is renamed as follows:

ethereumjs-block -> @ethereumjs/block

Please update your library references accordingly or install with:

npm i @ethereumjs/block

TypeScript/Library Import

This is the first TypeScript based release of the library, see PR #72. The import structure has slightly changed along:

TypeScript

import { BlockHeader } from 'ethereumjs-block'
import { Block } from 'ethereumjs-block'

JavaScript/Node.js

const BlockHeader = require('ethereumjs-block').BlockHeader
const Block = require('ethereumjs-block').Block

The library now also comes with a type declaration file distributed along with the package published.

Major Refactoring - Breaking Changes

This release is a major refactoring of the block library to simplify and strengthen its code base. Refactoring work has been done along PR #72 (Promises) and PR #883 (refactoring of API and internal code structure).

New Constructor Params

The way to instantiate a new BlockHeader or Block object has been completely reworked and is now more explicit, less error prone and produces more TypeScript friendly and readable code.

The old direct constructor usage is now discouraged in favor of different dedicated static factory methods to create new objects.

Breaking: While the main constructors can still be called, signatures changed significantly and your old new Block(...), new BlockHeader(...) instantiations won't work any more and needs to be updated.

BlockHeader Class

There are three new factory methods to create a new BlockHeader:

Pass in a Header-attribute named dictionary to BlockHeader.fromHeaderData(headerData: HeaderData = {}, opts?: BlockOptions):

const headerData = {
  number: 15,
  parentHash: '0x6bfee7294bf44572b7266358e627f3c35105e1c3851f3de09e6d646f955725a7',
  difficulty: 131072,
  gasLimit: 8000000,
  timestamp: 1562422144,
}
const header = BlockHeader.fromHeaderData(headerData)

Create a BlockHeader from an RLP-serialized header Buffer with BlockHeader.fromRLPSerializedHeader(serialized: Buffer, opts: BlockOptions).

const serialized = Buffer.from(
  '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',
  'hex'
)
const header = BlockHeader.fromRLPSerializedHeader(serialized)

Create a BlockHeader from an array of Buffer values, you can do a first short roundtrip test with:

const valuesArray = header.raw()
BlockHeader.fromValuesArray(valuesArray)

Generally internal types representing block header values are now closer to their domain representation (number, difficulty, gasLimit) instead of having everthing represented as a Buffer.

Block Class

There are analogue new static factories for the Block class:

Block.fromBlockData(blockData: BlockData = {}, opts?: BlockOptions)
Block.fromRLPSerializedBlock(serialized: Buffer, opts?: BlockOptions)
Block.fromValuesArray(values: BlockBuffer, opts?: BlockOptions)

Learn more about the full API in the docs.

Immutability

The returned block is now frozen and immutable. To work with a maliable block, copy it with const fakeBlock = Object.create(block).

If you need Block mutability - e.g. because you want to subclass Block and modifiy its behavior - there is a freeze option to prevent the Object.freeze() call on initialization, see PR #941.

Promise-based API

The API of this library is now completely promise-based and the old callback-style interface has been dropped.

This affects the following methods of the API now being defined as async and returning a Promise:

Header Class

BlockHeader.validate(blockchain: Blockchain, height?: BN): Promise<void>

Block Class

Block.genTxTrie(): Promise<void>
Block.validate(blockChain: Blockchain): Promise<void>
Block.validateUncles(blockchain: Blockchain): Promise<void>

Usage example:

try {
  await block.validate(blockchain)
  // Block validation has passed
} catch (err) {
  // handle errors appropriately
}

Header Validation Methods > Signature Changes

Breaking: The signatures of the following header validation methods have been updated to take a parentBlockHeader instead of a parentBlock input parameter for consistency and removing a circling dependency with Block:

BlockHeader.canonicalDifficulty(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): BN
BlockHeader.validateDifficulty(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): boolean
BlockHeader.validateGasLimit(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): boolean

On the Block library new corresponding methods have been added which both operate on a block instance and expect a parentBlock as an input parameter.

Breaking: Note that canonicalDifficulty() and validateDifficulty() in block and header now throw on non-PoW chains, see PR #937.

Breaking: Non-blockchain dependent validation checks have been extracted from validate() to its own Block.validateData() function. For the validate() method in block and header blockchain is now a mandatory parameter, see PR #942

New Default Hardfork

Breaking: The default HF on the library has been updated from petersburg to istanbul, see PR #906.

The HF setting is now automatically taken from the HF set for Common.DEAULT_HARDFORK, see PR #863.

Dual ES5 and ES2017 Builds

We significantly updated our internal tool and CI setup along the work on PR #913 with an update to ESLint from TSLint for code linting and formatting and the introduction of a new build setup.

Packages now target ES2017 for Node.js builds (the main entrypoint from package.json) and introduce a separate ES5 build distributed along using the browser directive as an entrypoint, see PR #921. This will result in performance benefits for Node.js consumers, see here for a releated discussion.

Other Changes

Features

Added Block.genesis() and BlockHeader.genesis() aliases to create a genesis block or header, PR #883
Added DAO hardfork support (check for extraData attribute if DAO HF is active), PR #843
Added the calcDifficultyFromHeader constructor option. If this BlockHeader is supplied, then the difficulty of the constructed BlockHeader will be set to the canonical difficulty (also if difficulty is set as parameter in the constructor). See #929
Added full uncle validation, which verifies if the uncles' parentHash points to the canonical chain, is not yet included and also is an uncle and not a canonical block. See PR #935
Additional consistency and validation checks in Block.validateUncles() for included uncle headers, PR #935

Changes and Refactoring

Added Node 10, 12 support, dropped Node 7 support, PR #72
Passing in a blockchain is now optional on Block.validate(), PR #883
Breaking: Block.validateTransactions(stringError: true) now returns a string[], PR #883
Breaking: Decoupling of the Block.serialize() and Block.raw() methods, Block.serialize() now always returns the RLP-encoded block (signature change!), Block.raw() always returns the pure Buffer array, PR #883
Breaking: Block.toJSON() now always returns the labeled JSON representation, removal of the labeled function parameter, PR #883
Updated merkle-patricia-tree dependency to v4, PR #787
Updated ethereumjs-util dependency to v7, PR #748
Removal of the async dependency, PR #72

CI and Testing

Browser test run on CI, PR #72
Karma browser test run config modernization and simplification, PR #72
Updated test source files to TypeScript, PR #72

Bug Fixes

Signature fix for pre-homestead blocks, PR #67
Fixed bug where block options have not been passed on to the main constructor from the static factory methods, see PR #941

3.0.0-rc.1 - 2020-11-19

This is the first release candidate towards a final library release, see beta.2 and especially beta.1 release notes for an overview on the full changes since the last publicly released version.

Additional consistency and validation checks in Block.validateUncles() for included uncle headers, PR #935

3.0.0-beta.2 - 2020-11-12

This is the second beta release towards a final library release, see beta.1 release notes for an overview on the full changes since the last publicly released version.

Added freeze option to allow for block freeze deactivation (e.g. to allow for subclassing block and adding additional parameters), see PR #941
Breaking: Difficulty-depending methods canonicalDifficulty() and validateDifficulty() in block and header now throw on non-PoW chains, see PR #937
Breaking: Non-blockchain dependent validation checks have been extracted from validate() to its own Block.validateData() function. For the validate() method in block and header blockchain is now a mandatory parameter, see PR #942
Fixed bug where block options have not been passed on to the main constructor from the static factory methods, see PR #941
Added full uncle validation, which verifies if the uncles' parentHash points to the canonical chain, is not yet included and also is an uncle and not a canonical block. See PR #935.

3.0.0-beta.1 - 2020-10-22

New Package Name

Attention! This new version is part of a series of EthereumJS releases all moving to a new scoped package name format. In this case the library is renamed as follows:

ethereumjs-block -> @ethereumjs/block

Please update your library references accordingly or install with:

npm i @ethereumjs/block

TypeScript/Library Import

This is the first TypeScript based release of the library, see PR #72. The import structure has slightly changed along:

TypeScript

import { BlockHeader } from 'ethereumjs-block'
import { Block } from 'ethereumjs-block'

JavaScript/Node.js

const BlockHeader = require('ethereumjs-block').BlockHeader
const Block = require('ethereumjs-block').Block

The library now also comes with a type declaration file distributed along with the package published.

Major Refactoring - Breaking Changes

This release is a major refactoring of the block library to simplify and strengthen its code base. Refactoring work has been done along PR #72 (Promises) and PR #883 (refactoring of API and internal code structure).

New Constructor Params

The way to instantiate a new BlockHeader or Block object has been completely reworked and is now more explicit, less error prone and produces more TypeScript friendly and readable code.

The old direct constructor usage is now discouraged in favor of different dedicated static factory methods to create new objects.

Breaking: While the main constructors can still be called, signatures changed significantly and your old new Block(...), new BlockHeader(...) instantiations won't work any more and needs to be updated.

BlockHeader Class

There are three new factory methods to create a new BlockHeader:

Pass in a Header-attribute named dictionary to BlockHeader.fromHeaderData(headerData: HeaderData = {}, opts?: BlockOptions):

const headerData = {
  number: 15,
  parentHash: '0x6bfee7294bf44572b7266358e627f3c35105e1c3851f3de09e6d646f955725a7',
  difficulty: 131072,
  gasLimit: 8000000,
  timestamp: 1562422144,
}
const header = BlockHeader.fromHeaderData(headerData)

Create a BlockHeader from an RLP-serialized header Buffer with BlockHeader.fromRLPSerializedHeader(serialized: Buffer, opts: BlockOptions).

const serialized = Buffer.from(
  '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',
  'hex'
)
const header = BlockHeader.fromRLPSerializedHeader(serialized)

Create a BlockHeader from an array of Buffer values, you can do a first short roundtrip test with:

const valuesArray = header.raw()
BlockHeader.fromValuesArray(valuesArray)

Generally internal types representing block header values are now closer to their domain representation (number, difficulty, gasLimit) instead of having everthing represented as a Buffer.

Block Class

There are analogue new static factories for the Block class:

Block.fromBlockData(blockData: BlockData = {}, opts?: BlockOptions)
Block.fromRLPSerializedBlock(serialized: Buffer, opts?: BlockOptions)
Block.fromValuesArray(values: BlockBuffer, opts?: BlockOptions)

Learn more about the full API in the docs.

Immutability

The returned block is now frozen and immutable. To work with a maliable block, copy it with const fakeBlock = Object.create(block).

Promise-based API

The API of this library is now completely promise-based and the old callback-style interface has been dropped.

This affects the following methods of the API now being defined as async and returning a Promise:

Header Class

BlockHeader.validate(blockchain: Blockchain, height?: BN): Promise<void>

Block Class

Block.genTxTrie(): Promise<void>
Block.validate(blockChain: Blockchain): Promise<void>
Block.validateUncles(blockchain: Blockchain): Promise<void>

Usage example:

try {
  await block.validate(blockchain)
  // Block validation has passed
} catch (err) {
  // handle errors appropriately
}

Header Validation Methods > Signature Changes

Breaking: The signatures of the following header validation methods have been updated to take a parentBlockHeader instead of a parentBlock input parameter for consistency and removing a circling dependency with Block:

BlockHeader.canonicalDifficulty(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): BN
BlockHeader.validateDifficulty(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): boolean
BlockHeader.validateGasLimit(parentBlockHeader: BlockHeader): boolean

On the Block library new corresponding methods have been added which both operate on a block instance and expect a parentBlock as an input parameter.

New Default Hardfork

Breaking: The default HF on the library has been updated from petersburg to istanbul, see PR #906. The HF setting is now automatically taken from the HF set for Common.DEAULT_HARDFORK, see PR #863.

Dual ES5 and ES2017 Builds

We significantly updated our internal tool and CI setup along the work on PR #913 with an update to ESLint from TSLint for code linting and formatting and the introduction of a new build setup.

Packages now target ES2017 for Node.js builds (the main entrypoint from package.json) and introduce a separate ES5 build distributed along using the browser directive as an entrypoint, see PR #921. This will result in performance benefits for Node.js consumers, see here for a releated discussion.

Other Changes

Features

Added Block.genesis() and BlockHeader.genesis() aliases to create a genesis block or header, PR #883
Added DAO hardfork support (check for extraData attribute if DAO HF is active), PR #843
Added the calcDifficultyFromHeader constructor option. If this BlockHeader is supplied, then the difficulty of the constructed BlockHeader will be set to the canonical difficulty (also if difficulty is set as parameter in the constructor). See #929

Changes and Refactoring

Added Node 10, 12 support, dropped Node 7 support, PR #72
Passing in a blockchain is now optional on Block.validate(), PR #883
Breaking: Block.validateTransactions(stringError: true) now returns a string[], PR #883
Breaking: Decoupling of the Block.serialize() and Block.raw() methods, Block.serialize() now always returns the RLP-encoded block (signature change!), Block.raw() always returns the pure Buffer array, PR #883
Breaking: Block.toJSON() now always returns the labeled JSON representation, removal of the labeled function parameter, PR #883
Updated merkle-patricia-tree dependency to v4, PR #787
Updated ethereumjs-util dependency to v7, PR #748
Removal of the async dependency, PR #72

CI and Testing

Browser test run on CI, PR #72
Karma browser test run config modernization and simplification PR #72
Updated test source files to TypeScript, PR #72

Bug Fixes

Signature fix for pre-homestead blocks, PR #67

2.2.2 - 2019-12-17

MuirGlacier support by updating to the new difficulty formula as stated in EIP-2384.

Please note that this release does not contain all the changes merged into master since the v2.2.0 release and only backports the difficulty formula adjustments to support MuirGlacier without having to go through migration to the v3.0.0 which contains breaking changes.

2.2.1 - 2019-11-14

Istanbul support by updating to the most recent ethereumjs-tx version v2.1.1.

Please note that this release does not contain all the changes merged into master since the v2.2.0 release and only backports the most recent ethereumjs-tx version to allow users to support Istanbul without having to go through migration to the v3.0.0 which contains breaking changes.

2.2.0 - 2019-02-06

Petersburg (aka constantinopleFix) as well as Goerli support/readiness by updating to a supporting ethereumjs-common version v1.1.0, PR #64

Other Changes:

Fixed package size issue by excluding tests and docs from being included in the package, PR #66
Error message fixes in index.js, PR #62
Replace uses of deprecated new Buffer with Buffer.from, PR #60
Remove ethereumjs-testing dependency (much smaller dev dependencies), PR #61

2.1.0 - 2018-10-19

Constantinople support, added difficulty bomb delay (EIP-1234), PR #54
Updated test data, added Constantinople tests, PR #56, #57
Added timestamp field to setGenesisParams(), PR #52

2.0.1 - 2018-08-08

Fixes BlockHeader.prototype.validate() bug, see PR #49

2.0.0 - 2018-06-25

This release introduces both support for different chains (mainnet, ropsten, ...) and hardforks up to the latest applied HF (byzantium). Parameters and genesis values are provided by the new ethereumjs-common library which also defines the set of supported chains and forks.

Changes in detail:

New initialization parameters opts.chain (default: mainnet) and opts.hardfork (default: null, block number-based behaviour), PR #44
Alternatively a Common class object can be provided directly with the opts.common parameter, see API docs
Correct block validation for all know hardforks, PR #47, if no hardfork is set validation logic is determined by block number in combination with the chain set
Genesis block initialization depending on the chain set (see ethereumjs-common for supported chains)
Extensive test additions to cover the newly introduced capabilities and changes
Fix default value for nonce (empty buffer -> <Buffer 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00>), PR #42

1.7.1 - 2018-02-15

Fix browserify issue blocking updates for packages depending on ethereumjs-block library, PR #40
Updated ethereumjs/common dependency, PR #38

1.7.0 - 2017-10-11

Metro-Byzantium compatible
New difficulty formula (EIP 100)
Difficulty bomb delay (EIP 649)
Removed isHomestead, isHomesteadReprice from API methods

1.6.0 - 2017-07-12

Breakout header-from-rpc as separate module

1.5.1 - 2017-06-04

Dev dependency updates
BN for gas limit

Older releases:

1.5.0 - 2017-01-31
1.4.0 - 2016-12-15
1.3.1 - 2016-10-14
1.3.0 - 2017-10-11

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CHANGELOG.md

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Changelog

3.2.1 - 2021-04-09

3.2.0 - 2021-03-18

Berlin HF Support

EthereumJS Libraries - Typed Transactions Readiness

Other Changes

3.1.0 - 2021-02-22

Clique/PoA Support

Other Changes

3.0.0 - 2020-11-24

New Package Name

TypeScript/Library Import

Major Refactoring - Breaking Changes

New Constructor Params

Immutability

Promise-based API

Header Validation Methods > Signature Changes

New Default Hardfork

Dual ES5 and ES2017 Builds

Other Changes

3.0.0-rc.1 - 2020-11-19

3.0.0-beta.2 - 2020-11-12

3.0.0-beta.1 - 2020-10-22

New Package Name

TypeScript/Library Import

Major Refactoring - Breaking Changes

New Constructor Params

Immutability

Promise-based API

Header Validation Methods > Signature Changes

New Default Hardfork

Dual ES5 and ES2017 Builds

Other Changes

2.2.2 - 2019-12-17

2.2.1 - 2019-11-14

2.2.0 - 2019-02-06

2.1.0 - 2018-10-19

2.0.1 - 2018-08-08

2.0.0 - 2018-06-25

1.7.1 - 2018-02-15

1.7.0 - 2017-10-11

1.6.0 - 2017-07-12

1.5.1 - 2017-06-04

Older releases: