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Bitcoin => Development & Technical Discussion => Topic started by: coingenuity on July 16, 2011, 02:38:35 AM



Title: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: coingenuity on July 16, 2011, 02:38:35 AM
As far as I can tell, there's no CLI call that enables the client to get the sender's address when the CLI is the receiving account/address. I might be wrong, since the wiki hasn't been updated since 0.3.20.2, but there's no call that I can find that allows you to do it. I wrote a simple workaround, but it would be nice if there was an easy command that I've glazed over somewhere.

Any clues?


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: error on July 16, 2011, 03:20:28 AM
As far as I can tell, there's no CLI call that enables the client to get the sender's address when the CLI is the receiving account/address. I might be wrong, since the wiki hasn't been updated since 0.3.20.2, but there's no call that I can find that allows you to do it. I wrote a simple workaround, but it would be nice if there was an easy command that I've glazed over somewhere.

Any clues?

The transaction input addresses are available, but they may not correspond to the actual entity who ordered the bitcoins sent to you. For instance, if you send bitcoins to your wallet from an exchange or online wallet service like CampBX or Instawallet, then the sending addresses belong to the web service, not you, and are semantically useless for determining the actual person who sent the bitcoins.


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: coingenuity on July 17, 2011, 06:06:34 AM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: error on July 17, 2011, 06:11:50 AM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?

You would have to patch bitcoind (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=724.0) to get that information, or use an external tool like bitcointools (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcointools).


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: wumpus on July 17, 2011, 10:41:20 AM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?
There is not really such a thing as 'input address' in Bitcoin. A transaction can have zero, one or multiple inputs. Those inputs can be addresses that received coins, but don't have to be. For example, generation transactions have no inputs at all. Transactions can spend multiple inputs when the amount to send is higher than the size of one of the inputs. And for more advanced scripts/contracts it might also work differently. This is why it is not shown in the UI.

If you want more detailed information about the inputs used you can enable debug mode (-debug) then doubleclick on a transaction...


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: coingenuity on July 17, 2011, 11:34:53 AM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?

You would have to patch bitcoind (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=724.0) to get that information, or use an external tool like bitcointools (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcointools).

Ah, beautiful. Thanks for the links.


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: error on July 17, 2011, 07:21:05 PM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?

You would have to patch bitcoind (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=724.0) to get that information, or use an external tool like bitcointools (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcointools).

Ah, beautiful. Thanks for the links.

Be careful when using that information. It may or may not be meaningful in whatever application you have envisioned (which you didn't disclose).


Title: Re: This is probably a stupid question, but is there a way to scrape a sender addy?
Post by: coingenuity on July 18, 2011, 09:12:55 AM
How do you output an input address from within bitcoind?

You would have to patch bitcoind (http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=724.0) to get that information, or use an external tool like bitcointools (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcointools).

Ah, beautiful. Thanks for the links.

Be careful when using that information. It may or may not be meaningful in whatever application you have envisioned (which you didn't disclose).

I was mostly curious. I've already got a good solution, I just wondered if there was a better one. :)