Author: Danny Thorpe 2015-09-01 16:12:42
Published on: 2015-09-01T16:12:42+00:00
The discussion is about using a shorter and more human-friendly way to distinguish between mainnet and testnet networks in bitcoin library implementations. The idea of using network magic bytes instead of long hex strings from the genesis hash is suggested, which is just as distinct but much shorter. However, the original poster prefers a common network name mapping for clarity. The proposal suggests defining one string name alias for each supported network and leaving mapping to local lingo to the implementors. Another suggestion that is brought up is using 'chain' instead of 'network' in the URL parameters, with chainID being the hash of the genesis block. This parameter could be optional for backwards compatibility. The preference is to respect the most commonly used schemes and have a more uniform approach to naming conventions for networks. Examples of URLs for transactions and blocks in testnet and bitcoin's mainnet are provided.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T21:16:49.958634+00:00