"listunspent" call for multi-sig addresses?

[cypherpunks]

I want to find out the unspent transactions for a multi-sig address, so I know how to properly spend funds from the address. How can I do this? listunspent just seems to return an empty array for all multi-sig addresses.

I'm writing a script so need to figure out how to do this programmatically.

[kjj]

I just tested it by sending 0.1 BTC to a multisig address, and it shows up instantly in listunspent.

Does your node actually know that address?  Does it have enough keys to redeem transactions sent to it?

[cypherpunks]

Ah, okay, well first I either misused or found a bug in the unspent ["address",...] command. It didn't work when I put brackets around a single address, but only with no brackets.

Second, the way this will work, nobody will ever have all the keys to redeem the transaction, they will be signed independently and only the signed transactions will be shared. So listunspent seems not to work in that case.

Is there any way I can glean this info from a bitcoind client? Or do I have to use something like the blockchain.info api to find unspent transactions for arbitrary multisig addresses?

[kjj]

Ah, okay, well first I either misused or found a bug in the unspent ["address",...] command. It didn't work when I put brackets around a single address, but only with no brackets.

Second, the way this will work, nobody will ever have all the keys to redeem the transaction, they will be signed independently and only the signed transactions will be shared. So listunspent seems not to work in that case.

Is there any way I can glean this info from a bitcoind client? Or do I have to use something like the blockchain.info api to find unspent transactions for arbitrary multisig addresses?

Correct.  listunspent is the list of transaction outputs that are spendable right now, by this node.  This is not particularly useful for split key systems, but we don't have anything better so far.

[cypherpunks]

Thanks, I suspected that would be the case.