Python code for validating bitcoin address

[Gavin Andresen]

This bitcoind address validator is a subclass of the Django forms.CharField class, but could easily be adapted to other frameworks or to be standalone code.

It does a "deep" validation, checking that the checksum built into every bitcoin address matches the address. It needs the PyCrypto library for the SHA256 function.

I hereby release this code into the public domain, do with it what you will.  And please let me know if you find any bugs in it.

BCAddressField.py:

Code:

#
# DJango field type for a Bitcoin Address
#
import re
from django import forms
from django.forms.util import ValidationError
from Crypto.Hash import SHA256

class BCAddressField(forms.CharField):
  default_error_messages = {
    'invalid': 'Invalid Bitcoin address.',
    }

  def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(BCAddressField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

  def clean(self, value):
    value = value.strip()
    if re.match(r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$", value) is None:
      raise ValidationError(self.error_messages['invalid'])
    version = get_bcaddress_version(value)
    if version is None:
      raise ValidationError(self.error_messages['invalid'])
    return value

import math

__b58chars = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz'
__b58base = len(__b58chars)

def b58encode(v):
  """ encode v, which is a string of bytes, to base58.                                                                                                               
  """

  long_value = 0L
  for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
    long_value += (256**i) * ord(c)

  result = ''
  while long_value >= __b58base:
    div, mod = divmod(long_value, __b58base)
    result = __b58chars[mod] + result
    long_value = div
  result = __b58chars[long_value] + result

  # Bitcoin does a little leading-zero-compression:                                                                                                                  
  # leading 0-bytes in the input become leading-1s                                                                                                                   
  nPad = 0
  for c in v:
    if c == '\0': nPad += 1
    else: break

  return (__b58chars[0]*nPad) + result

def b58decode(v, length):
  """ decode v into a string of len bytes                                                                                                                            
  """
  long_value = 0L
  for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
    long_value += __b58chars.find(c) * (__b58base**i)

  result = ''
  while long_value >= 256:
    div, mod = divmod(long_value, 256)
    result = chr(mod) + result
    long_value = div
  result = chr(long_value) + result

  nPad = 0
  for c in v:
    if c == __b58chars[0]: nPad += 1
    else: break

  result = chr(0)*nPad + result
  if length is not None and len(result) != length:
    return None

  return result

def get_bcaddress_version(strAddress):
  """ Returns None if strAddress is invalid.  Otherwise returns integer version of address. """
  addr = b58decode(strAddress,25)
  if addr is None: return None
  version = addr[0]
  checksum = addr[-4:]
  vh160 = addr[:-4] # Version plus hash160 is what is checksummed                                                                                                    
  h3=SHA256.new(SHA256.new(vh160).digest()).digest()
  if h3[0:4] == checksum:
    return ord(version)
  return None

October 20: Fixed bug with bitcoin addresses with leading-1's.

[1715585308]

1715585308

[1715585308]

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[1715585308]

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[davout]

Thanks for your code !

Contributing with a Ruby translation (more specifically a Rails drop-in validator)

require 'digest'

class BitcoinAddressValidator < ActiveModel::EachValidator
  def validate(record, field, value)
    unless valid_bitcoin_address?(value)
      record.errors[field] << "Bitcoin address is invalid"
    end
  end

  private

  B58Chars = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz'
  B58Base = B58Chars.length

  def self.valid_bitcoin_address?(address)
    (address =~ /^[a-zA-Z1-9]{33,35}$/) and version(address)
  end

  def self.version(address)
    decoded = b58_decode(address, 25)
    
    version = decoded[0, 1]
    checksum = decoded[-4, decoded.length]
    vh160 = decoded[0, decoded.length - 4]

    hashed = (Digest::SHA2.new << (Digest::SHA2.new << vh160).digest).digest

    hashed[0, 4] == checksum ? version[0] : nil
  end

  def self.b58_decode(value, length)
    long_value = 0
    index = 0
    result = ""

    value.reverse.each_char do |c|
      long_value += B58Chars.index(c) * (B58Base ** index)
      index += 1
    end

    while long_value >= 256 do
      div, mod = long_value.divmod 256
      result = mod.chr + result
      long_value = div
    end

    result = long_value.chr + result

    if result.length < length
      result = 0.chr * (length - result.length) + result
    end

    result
  end
end

Passes unit tests (see http://github.com/davout/bitcoin-bank)

Just a question, what's the use of your b58_encode method ?

[ByteCoin]

 (address =~ /^[a-zA-Z1-9]{33,35}$/) 

You should bear in mind the fact that 1111111111111111111114oLvT2 is a valid Bitcoin address. It has 27 characters. 28,29,30... etc character addresses also exist.

I have mentioned this before in

ByteCoin

[Gavin Andresen]

RE: what's the use of b58_encode?  It is dead code for this use-- bitcointools (where I first implemented this stuff) uses it to translate from binary hash160 to human-readable bitcoin addresses.

RE: 27 character bitcoin addresses:  I'm puzzled.  There's a mismatch between the way bitcoin treats leading zeros (leading 1's when base58 encoded) and the way my python code treats them.

ByteCoin: have you dissected the bitcoin code enough to explain how it decides how many leading zeros to add?  According to my code, '14oLvT2' and '11111111111111111111111111114oLvT2' are the same bitcoin address (corresponding to the public key with a hash of all zero bytes).

But bitcoin only likes the 27-character '1111111111111111111114oLvT2' version.

I'll have to stare at the code some more tomorrow when I'm more awake.

[theymos]

For every leading 0x00 byte, add a leading 1 (encode). For every leading 1, add a 0x00 byte (decode). For encode, don't accept input that doesn't have an even number of bits (divisible by eight), as this doesn't make sense. For decode, pad leading zeros until you have an even number of bits.

I just check that the output immediately post-DecodeBase58 (including leading zeroes, checksum, versionNumber) is 25 bytes long. I think that Bitcoin does something similar to this.

I made some web tools for dealing with addresses:
http://theymos.ath.cx:64150/q/checkaddress
http://theymos.ath.cx:64150/q/addresstohash
http://theymos.ath.cx:64150/q/hashtoaddress
http://theymos.ath.cx:64150/q/hashpubkey
(Source not public yet.)

[Gavin Andresen]

Thanks theymos!  I completely missed the leading-zero-bytes become leading-'1'-chars one-for-one.

I fixed the python code in the first message of this thread.

[ploum]

Are you working on a Django bitcoin project ? I'm highly interested, thinking about it myself too.

[MagicalTux]

For those interested, I rewrote base58_encode/base58_decode in PHP, and added a "decode_btc" function (that will return an array containing "version" and "hash" for a given bitcoin address).

This code requires the following php extensions:

• gmp (for bignum values, we could use bc, or even the php-native implementation in pear, I'm just too lazy and I got gmp installed on all my servers anyway)
• hash (or mhash, someone could insert a php-native sha256 implementation to fallback to)

Here's the code, largely inspired from the code of the previous authors of this thread:

Code:

<?php
$btc = decode_btc('1Eym7pyJcaambv8FG4ZoU8A4xsiL9us2zz');
var_dump($btc);
var_dump(encode_btc($btc));
$btc = decode_btc('1111111111111111111114oLvT2');
var_dump($btc);
var_dump(encode_btc($btc));

function hash_sha256($string) {
  if (function_exists('hash')) return hash('sha256', $string, true);
  if (function_exists('mhash')) return mhash(MHASH_SHA256, $string);
  // insert native php implementation of sha256 here
  throw new Exception('Too lazy to fallback when the guy who configured php was lazy too');
}

function encode_btc($btc) {
  $btc = chr($btc['version']).pack('H*', $btc['hash']);
  if (strlen($btc) != 21) return false;
  $cksum = substr(hash_sha256(hash_sha256($btc)), 0, 4);
  return base58_encode($btc.$cksum);
}

function decode_btc($btc) {
  $btc = base58_decode($btc);
  if (strlen($btc) != 25) return false; // invalid
  $version = ord($btc[0]);
  $cksum = substr($btc, -4);
  // checksum is double sha256 (take 4 first bytes of result)
  $good_cksum = substr(hash_sha256(hash_sha256(substr($btc, 0, -4))), 0, 4);
  if ($cksum != $good_cksum) return false;
  return array('version' => $version, 'hash' => bin2hex(substr($btc, 1, 20)));
}

function base58_encode($string) {
  $table = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz';

  $long_value = gmp_init(bin2hex($string), 16);

  $result = '';
  while(gmp_cmp($long_value, 58) > 0) {
    list($long_value, $mod) = gmp_div_qr($long_value, 58);
    $result .= $table[gmp_intval($mod)];
  }
  $result .= $table[gmp_intval($long_value)];

  for($nPad = 0; $string[$nPad] == "\0"; ++$nPad);

  return str_repeat($table[0], $nPad).strrev($result);
}

function base58_decode($string) {
  $table = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz';
  static $table_rev = null;
  if (is_null($table_rev)) {
    $table_rev = array();
    for($i=0;$i<58;++$i) $table_rev[$table[$i]]=$i;
  }

  $l = strlen($string);
  $long_value = gmp_init('0');
  for($i=0;$i<$l;++$i) {
    $c=$string[$l-$i-1];
    $long_value = gmp_add($long_value, gmp_mul($table_rev[$c], gmp_pow(58, $i)));
  }

  // php is lacking binary output for gmp
  $res = pack('H*', gmp_strval($long_value, 16));

  for($nPad = 0; $string[$nPad] == $table[0]; ++$nPad);
  return str_repeat("\0", $nPad).$res;
}

This outputs:

array(2) {
  ["version"]=>
  int(0)
  ["hash"]=>
  string(40) "9955c1b44fa66688d27aaa06ba4ad02c6dd91088"
}
string(34) "1Eym7pyJcaambv8FG4ZoU8A4xsiL9us2zz"
array(2) {
  ["version"]=>
  int(0)
  ["hash"]=>
  string(40) "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
}
string(27) "1111111111111111111114oLvT2"

[jerfelix]

  default_error_messages = {
    'invalid': 'Invalid Bitcoin address.',
    }

  def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(BCAddressField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

  def clean(self, value):
    value = value.strip()
    if re.match(r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$", value) is None:
      raise ValidationError(self.error_messages['invalid'])

Gavin,
I'm trying to understand your usage of default.error_messages (first line in the snippet), vs. self.error_messages (last line in the snippet, above),  in your code.
Does Django somehow link those two together?  Or is that a bug in the code?  (I'm sure this code has been tested a lot since October!)

Seems to me that you should be using the same dictionary in both places.

[grondilu]

It's kind of frustrating that nobody seems to want to use my bash functions to check bitcoin addresses.

It only requires basic unix tools such as xxd, dc and openssl.

Code:

base58=({1..9} {A..H} {J..N} {P..Z} {a..k} {m..z})
bitcoinregex="^[$(printf "%s" "${base58[@]}")]{34}$"

decodeBase58() {
    local s=$1
    for i in {0..57}
    do s="${s//${base58[i]}/ $i}"
    done
    dc <<< "16o0d${s// /+58*}+f" 
}

checksum() {
    xxd -p -r <<<"$1" |
    openssl dgst -sha256 -binary |
    openssl dgst -sha256 -binary |
    xxd -p -c 80 |
    head -c 8
}

checkBitcoinAddress() {
    if [[ "$1" =~ $bitcoinregex ]]
    then
        h=$(decodeBase58 "$1")
        checksum "00${h::${#h}-8}" |
        grep -qi "^${h: -8}$"
    else return 2
    fi
}

[beppu]

It's kind of frustrating that nobody seems to want to use my bash functions to check bitcoin addresses.

It only requires basic unix tools such as xxd, dc and openssl.

This is beautiful and concise shell scripting.  Nice job.

[grondilu]

It's kind of frustrating that nobody seems to want to use my bash functions to check bitcoin addresses.

It only requires basic unix tools such as xxd, dc and openssl.

This is beautiful and concise shell scripting.  Nice job.

Ah, finally!   Thanks!   

[Yogafan00000]

.NET 4.0 version of bitcoin address validation, Translated by YogaFan:

Code:

Imports System.Security.Cryptography
Imports System.Numerics

Module ValidateBitCoinAddress

Function isValidBitcoinAddress(s As String) As Boolean
    Dim regExPattern As String = "[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$"
    If MatchString(s, regExPattern) Then
        If get_bcaddress_version(s) <> "" Then
            isValidBitcoinAddress = True
        Else
            isValidBitcoinAddress = False
        End If
    Else
        isValidBitcoinAddress = False
    End If
End Function


Function MatchString(ByVal str As String, ByVal regexstr As String) As Boolean
    str = str.Trim()
    Dim pattern As New System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(regexstr)
    Return pattern.IsMatch(str)
End Function

Function get_bcaddress_version(strAddress) As String

    Dim addr As Byte()
    Dim version As Byte
    Dim checksum(3) As Byte
    Dim h3(3) As Byte
    Dim x As Integer

    addr = b58decode(strAddress, 25)

    If IsNothing(addr) Then
        'fail
        get_bcaddress_version = ""
        Exit Function
    End If

    Dim lenAddr As Integer = addr.GetLength(0)
    Dim vh160(lenAddr - 5) As Byte
    Dim sha As New SHA256Managed()

    version = addr(0)
    checksum = {addr(lenAddr - 4), addr(lenAddr - 3), addr(lenAddr - 2), addr(lenAddr - 1)}

    For x = 0 To vh160.GetLength(0) - 1
        vh160(x) = addr(x)
    Next

    Dim Hash() As Byte = sha.ComputeHash(vh160)
    Dim SecondHash() As Byte = sha.ComputeHash(Hash)

    h3 = {SecondHash(0), SecondHash(1), SecondHash(2), SecondHash(3)}

    If h3(0) = checksum(0) And h3(1) = checksum(1) And h3(2) = checksum(2) And h3(3) = checksum(3) Then
        get_bcaddress_version = version.ToString
    Else
        'fail
        get_bcaddress_version = ""
    End If

End Function

Function b58encode(b() As Byte) As String


    Dim b58chars As String = "123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"
    Dim b58base As BigInteger = 58
    Dim x As BigInteger
    Dim long_value As BigInteger = 0
    Dim result As String = ""
    Dim iMod As BigInteger = 0
    Dim iDiv As BigInteger = 0
    Dim b256base As BigInteger = 256

    Dim c As Integer
    Dim lv As Integer

    lv = b.GetLength(0) - 1
    c = 0
    For x = lv To 0 Step -1
        long_value = long_value + BigInteger.Pow(b256base, x) * b(c)
        c = c + 1
    Next

    Do While long_value >= b58base
        iMod = long_value Mod b58base
        iDiv = long_value / b58base

        result = b58chars(iMod) & result
        long_value = iDiv
    Loop
    result = b58chars(long_value) & result

    For x = 0 To lv
        If b(x) = CByte(0) Then
            result = b58chars(0) & result
        Else
            Exit For
        End If
    Next

    Return result
    End Function

Function insertat(b As Byte, bArr As Byte(), pos As Integer) As Byte()

    If IsNothing(bArr) Then
        'empty array; return single celled array
        Dim tmpsomeOtherBarr(0) As Byte
        tmpsomeOtherBarr(0) = b
        insertat = tmpsomeOtherBarr
        Exit Function
    End If

    Dim x As Integer
    Dim tmpbArr(bArr.GetLength(0)) As Byte

    If pos = -1 Then
        'insert at end of array
        For x = 0 To bArr.GetLength(0) - 1
            tmpbArr(x) = bArr(x)
        Next
        tmpbArr(bArr.GetLength(0)) = b

        Return tmpbArr
    ElseIf pos = 0 Then
        'insert at beginning
        tmpbArr(0) = b
        For x = 1 To bArr.GetLength(0)
            tmpbArr(x) = bArr(x - 1)
        Next
        Return tmpbArr
    Else
        'insert in the middle
        For x = 0 To pos - 1
            tmpbArr(x) = bArr(x)
        Next
        tmpbArr(pos) = b
        For x = pos + 1 To bArr.GetLength(0)
            tmpbArr(x) = bArr(x)
        Next
        Return tmpbArr

    End If
End Function

Function b58decode(v As String, l As Integer) As Byte()

    Dim b58chars As String = "123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"
    Dim b58base As BigInteger = 58
    Dim long_value As BigInteger = 0
    Dim lv As Integer
    Dim c As Integer
    Dim x As BigInteger
    Dim biPos As BigInteger = 0
    Dim iMod As BigInteger = 0
    Dim iDiv As BigInteger = 0
    Dim result() As Byte

    lv = Len(v) - 1

    For x = lv To 0 Step -1
        c = c + 1
        biPos = b58chars.IndexOf(Mid(v, c, 1))
        long_value = long_value + BigInteger.Pow(b58base, x) * biPos
    Next

    Do While long_value >= 256
        iMod = long_value Mod 256
        iDiv = long_value / 256
        result = insertat(CByte(iMod), result, 0)
        long_value = iDiv
    Loop
    result = insertat(CByte(long_value), result, 0)

    For x = 1 To Len(v)
        If Mid(v, x, 1) = b58chars(0) Then
            result = insertat(CByte(0), result, 0)
        Else
            Exit For
        End If
    Next

    If l > 0 And result.GetLength(0) <> l Then
        Return Nothing
    Else
        Return result
    End If

End Function

End Module

[Xenland]

I too have PHP and Java code for validating and generating Bitcoin addresses that have been tested and known to work.

PHP Example Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/php/verify_bitcoin_address.php

Java Example Source Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/java/Commandline%20Generate%20Bitcoin%20Address/src/commandline/CommandLine.java

I Also have an English explanation of how to verify a Bitcoin address (Part of the Bitcoin Pseudocode client project)
http://xenland.github.com/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/verifyaddress.html

[matmar10]

For those interested, I rewrote base58_encode/base58_decode in PHP, and added a "decode_btc" function (that will return an array containing "version" and "hash" for a given bitcoin address).

This code requires the following php extensions:

• gmp (for bignum values, we could use bc, or even the php-native implementation in pear, I'm just too lazy and I got gmp installed on all my servers anyway)
• hash (or mhash, someone could insert a php-native sha256 implementation to fallback to)

Here's the code, largely inspired from the code of the previous authors of this thread:

Code:

<?php
$btc = decode_btc('1Eym7pyJcaambv8FG4ZoU8A4xsiL9us2zz');
var_dump($btc);
var_dump(encode_btc($btc));
$btc = decode_btc('1111111111111111111114oLvT2');
var_dump($btc);
var_dump(encode_btc($btc));

function hash_sha256($string) {
  if (function_exists('hash')) return hash('sha256', $string, true);
  if (function_exists('mhash')) return mhash(MHASH_SHA256, $string);
  // insert native php implementation of sha256 here
  throw new Exception('Too lazy to fallback when the guy who configured php was lazy too');
}

function encode_btc($btc) {
  $btc = chr($btc['version']).pack('H*', $btc['hash']);
  if (strlen($btc) != 21) return false;
  $cksum = substr(hash_sha256(hash_sha256($btc)), 0, 4);
  return base58_encode($btc.$cksum);
}

function decode_btc($btc) {
  $btc = base58_decode($btc);
  if (strlen($btc) != 25) return false; // invalid
  $version = ord($btc[0]);
  $cksum = substr($btc, -4);
  // checksum is double sha256 (take 4 first bytes of result)
  $good_cksum = substr(hash_sha256(hash_sha256(substr($btc, 0, -4))), 0, 4);
  if ($cksum != $good_cksum) return false;
  return array('version' => $version, 'hash' => bin2hex(substr($btc, 1, 20)));
}

function base58_encode($string) {
  $table = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz';

  $long_value = gmp_init(bin2hex($string), 16);

  $result = '';
  while(gmp_cmp($long_value, 58) > 0) {
    list($long_value, $mod) = gmp_div_qr($long_value, 58);
    $result .= $table[gmp_intval($mod)];
  }
  $result .= $table[gmp_intval($long_value)];

  for($nPad = 0; $string[$nPad] == "\0"; ++$nPad);

  return str_repeat($table[0], $nPad).strrev($result);
}

function base58_decode($string) {
  $table = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz';
  static $table_rev = null;
  if (is_null($table_rev)) {
    $table_rev = array();
    for($i=0;$i<58;++$i) $table_rev[$table[$i]]=$i;
  }

  $l = strlen($string);
  $long_value = gmp_init('0');
  for($i=0;$i<$l;++$i) {
    $c=$string[$l-$i-1];
    $long_value = gmp_add($long_value, gmp_mul($table_rev[$c], gmp_pow(58, $i)));
  }

  // php is lacking binary output for gmp
  $res = pack('H*', gmp_strval($long_value, 16));

  for($nPad = 0; $string[$nPad] == $table[0]; ++$nPad);
  return str_repeat("\0", $nPad).$res;
}

This outputs:

array(2) {
  ["version"]=>
  int(0)
  ["hash"]=>
  string(40) "9955c1b44fa66688d27aaa06ba4ad02c6dd91088"
}
string(34) "1Eym7pyJcaambv8FG4ZoU8A4xsiL9us2zz"
array(2) {
  ["version"]=>
  int(0)
  ["hash"]=>
  string(40) "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
}
string(27) "1111111111111111111114oLvT2"

Thanks for sharing this source! I've used your implementation, but I noticed some addresses don't validate. For example: 12HzMcHURwmAxAkfWgtktYsF3vRTkBz4F3 Any thoughts on why?

[grondilu]

Has anyone written a test-suite for key generation-validation?

I mean, a text/json/whatever file where you'd have a couple of address/private key pairs?

And in all possible formats (test network, compressed/uncompressed and so on...).

That would be useful.

[jgarzik]

Has anyone written a test-suite for key generation-validation?

I mean, a text/json/whatever file where you'd have a couple of address/private key pairs?

And in all possible formats (test network, compressed/uncompressed and so on...).

That would be useful.

There is some JSON test data at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/src/test/data

I'm using this for a C-based "libccoin" bitcoin library testing https://github.com/jgarzik/picocoin/

[grondilu]

By the way I've created a rosetta code draft task for validating a bitcoin address:

http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Bitcoin/address_validation

Don't hesitate to put your solution in your language.   But please make it short.

[grondilu]

There is some JSON test data at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/src/test/data

Thanks!

[matmar10]

I too have PHP and Java code for validating and generating Bitcoin addresses that have been tested and known to work.

PHP Example Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/php/verify_bitcoin_address.php

Java Example Source Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/java/Commandline%20Generate%20Bitcoin%20Address/src/commandline/CommandLine.java

I Also have an English explanation of how to verify a Bitcoin address (Part of the Bitcoin Pseudocode client project)
http://xenland.github.com/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/verifyaddress.html

Thanks for this contribution! I ran the test fixtures for valid and invalid public keys listed below, with a few of my own known keys added; I got the following result:

There was 1 failure:

1) Lmh\BitcoinTransferBundle\Tests\BitcoinAddressValidatorTest::testInvalid
Test invalid public key '37qgekLpCCHrQuSjvX3fs496FWTGsHFHizjJAs6NPcR47aefnnCWECAhHV6E3g4YN7u7Yuwod5Y' returns 1 error.
Failed asserting that 0 matches expected 1.

/Users/matmar10/Projects/bitcoinbymobile/src/Lmh/BitcoinTransferBundle/Tests/BitcoinAddressValidatorTest.php:69

FAILURES!
Tests: 2, Assertions: 22, Failures: 1.

By the way, your PHP code had an undefined variable throwing an error and also an unused variable; I'll send you a git push request.

[nima]

This bitcoind address validator is a subclass of the Django forms.CharField class, but could easily be adapted to other frameworks or to be standalone code.

It does a "deep" validation, checking that the checksum built into every bitcoin address matches the address. It needs the PyCrypto library for the SHA256 function.

I hereby release this code into the public domain, do with it what you will.  And please let me know if you find any bugs in it.

BCAddressField.py:

Code:

#
# DJango field type for a Bitcoin Address
#
import re
from django import forms
from django.forms.util import ValidationError
from Crypto.Hash import SHA256

class BCAddressField(forms.CharField):
  default_error_messages = {
    'invalid': 'Invalid Bitcoin address.',
    }

  def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
    super(BCAddressField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

  def clean(self, value):
    value = value.strip()
    if re.match(r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$", value) is None:
      raise ValidationError(self.error_messages['invalid'])
    version = get_bcaddress_version(value)
    if version is None:
      raise ValidationError(self.error_messages['invalid'])
    return value

import math

__b58chars = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz'
__b58base = len(__b58chars)

def b58encode(v):
  """ encode v, which is a string of bytes, to base58.                                                                                                               
  """

  long_value = 0L
  for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
    long_value += (256**i) * ord(c)

  result = ''
  while long_value >= __b58base:
    div, mod = divmod(long_value, __b58base)
    result = __b58chars[mod] + result
    long_value = div
  result = __b58chars[long_value] + result

  # Bitcoin does a little leading-zero-compression:                                                                                                                  
  # leading 0-bytes in the input become leading-1s                                                                                                                   
  nPad = 0
  for c in v:
    if c == '\0': nPad += 1
    else: break

  return (__b58chars[0]*nPad) + result

def b58decode(v, length):
  """ decode v into a string of len bytes                                                                                                                            
  """
  long_value = 0L
  for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
    long_value += __b58chars.find(c) * (__b58base**i)

  result = ''
  while long_value >= 256:
    div, mod = divmod(long_value, 256)
    result = chr(mod) + result
    long_value = div
  result = chr(long_value) + result

  nPad = 0
  for c in v:
    if c == __b58chars[0]: nPad += 1
    else: break

  result = chr(0)*nPad + result
  if length is not None and len(result) != length:
    return None

  return result

def get_bcaddress_version(strAddress):
  """ Returns None if strAddress is invalid.  Otherwise returns integer version of address. """
  addr = b58decode(strAddress,25)
  if addr is None: return None
  version = addr[0]
  checksum = addr[-4:]
  vh160 = addr[:-4] # Version plus hash160 is what is checksummed                                                                                                    
  h3=SHA256.new(SHA256.new(vh160).digest()).digest()
  if h3[0:4] == checksum:
    return ord(version)
  return None

October 20: Fixed bug with bitcoin addresses with leading-1's.

Hi Gavin,
Thanks for the code. I used it in a python script to validate a bunch of addresses. One invalid address managed to escape the validation (miwxGypTcHDXT3m4avmrMMC4co7XWqbG9r). Would you please confirm if the address says to be valid when you check it with your code?
Thank you

[cande]

I too have PHP and Java code for validating and generating Bitcoin addresses that have been tested and known to work.

PHP Example Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/php/verify_bitcoin_address.php

Java Example Source Link: https://github.com/Xenland/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/blob/gh-pages/examples/java/Commandline%20Generate%20Bitcoin%20Address/src/commandline/CommandLine.java

I Also have an English explanation of how to verify a Bitcoin address (Part of the Bitcoin Pseudocode client project)
http://xenland.github.com/Bitcoin-Pseudocode-Client/verifyaddress.html

Thanks for this contribution! I ran the test fixtures for valid and invalid public keys listed below, with a few of my own known keys added; I got the following result:

There was 1 failure:

1) Lmh\BitcoinTransferBundle\Tests\BitcoinAddressValidatorTest::testInvalid
Test invalid public key '37qgekLpCCHrQuSjvX3fs496FWTGsHFHizjJAs6NPcR47aefnnCWECAhHV6E3g4YN7u7Yuwod5Y' returns 1 error.
Failed asserting that 0 matches expected 1.

/Users/matmar10/Projects/bitcoinbymobile/src/Lmh/BitcoinTransferBundle/Tests/BitcoinAddressValidatorTest.php:69

FAILURES!
Tests: 2, Assertions: 22, Failures: 1.

By the way, your PHP code had an undefined variable throwing an error and also an unused variable; I'll send you a git push request.

Hi, using the PHP code I can see that there has been no update on that gitrepo for the past 8 months, what correction did you find? can you post it here?

false negative address I found: 13saQdsv2XbkL9ef9FFT92m2zDaBGKwVGM

[Rotsor]

Haskell translation:

Code:

module Main where

import Data.List
import Data.Maybe
import Data.Word
import Data.Tuple
import Control.Arrow
import Control.Monad
import qualified Crypto.Hash.SHA256 as SHA256
import qualified Data.ByteString as B

fromBase :: Integral a => Integer -> [a] -> Integer
fromBase b = foldl (\a c -> fromIntegral c + a * b) 0

toBase :: Num a => Integer -> Integer -> [a]
toBase b = reverse . unfoldr f where
 f 0 = Nothing
 f n = Just $ first fromInteger $ swap $ n `divMod` b


b58chars = "123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"

b58encode :: [Word8] -> [Char]
b58encode l = replicate (length $ takeWhile(==0) l) '1' ++ 
	  (map (b58chars!!) . toBase 58 . fromBase 256) l

fromb58char c = fst . fromJust . find ((==c) . snd) $ zip [0..] b58chars

b58decode v = 
  case span (== b58chars !! 0) v of
    (ones, v) -> 
      replicate (length ones) 0 ++
        (toBase 256 . fromBase 58 . map fromb58char) v

b58decodeL l v = 
  let 
    res = b58decode v 
  in
    guard (length res == l) >> return res

sha256x2 = B.unpack . SHA256.hash . SHA256.hash . B.pack where

checksum = take 4 . sha256x2

mkAddress :: Word8 -> [Word8] -> [Char]
mkAddress v d = b58encode $ v : d ++ checksum (v : d)

validateAddress :: [Char] -> Maybe (Word8, [Word8])
validateAddress addr = do
  (version : d) <- b58decodeL 25 addr
  case splitAt 20 d of
    (d, check) -> do
      guard $ checksum (version : d) == check
      return (version, d)

The code is under WTFPL.

[grondilu]

BTW did I tell you guys that there is a rosetta code entry for bitcoin address validation?

[Viceroy]

I REALLY did want to use your code, grondilu, but it lacks documentation.  I tried to use the perl version and the bash version but couldn't get either to work.  I'm sure it's a lack of understanding on my part.  

Instead I grabbed Xenland's modification of MagicalTux's php script and made a couple changes:

EDIT:
THIS CODE GIVES FALSE NEGATIVES SHOWING PERFECTLY GOOD ADDRESSES AS BAD!!!

[code retracted]


working code a few posts down the thread

that way
|
|
|
V

[grondilu]

I REALLY did want to use your code, grondilu, but it lacks documentation.  I tried to use the perl version and the bash version but couldn't get either to work.  I'm sure it's a lack of understanding on my part.  

Could you report your error message here or on the rosettacode talk page please?

[Viceroy]

I REALLY did want to use your code, grondilu, but it lacks documentation.  I tried to use the perl version and the bash version but couldn't get either to work.  I'm sure it's a lack of understanding on my part.  

Could you report your error message here or on the rosettacode talk page please?

lol, it would look like this:

I'm too dumb to figure out how to use a bash script and I forget what issue it was that caused me to not want to use the perl, oh yea... I had no idea how to"feed" the address into the program.  So I gave up.  No reason to noise up your page with that.

now I'm looking at  http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress as I found the above php useless.... it just gives false negatives.

why is there no simple tool like  http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress

oh, wait, maybe there is over at  http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress.. I'll report back (unless I just get lost in smoke and code).

Oh, I should probably start with my objective.... but finishing with it will suffice:

I am trying to figure out how to check bitcoin addresses and make bitcoin addresses and valid data in an online php form.

[theymos]

why is there no simple tool like  http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress

/q/checkaddress uses this plus some extra checking. Note that the checkAddress function assumes that the input is valid base58. Do something like:

Code:

if(preg_match('/^[1-9A-HJ-NP-Za-km-z]+$/', $address) && strlen($address) <= 34 && checkAddress($address))
    address is valid

[Viceroy]

thanks!

EDIT
working code:

Shows Good Addresses as bad.

[retracted code]

working code a few posts down the thread

that way
|
|
|
V

[jackjack]

Did you try pywallet's code?
Look for DecodeBase58Check or something like that

[Viceroy]

I'm not getting the same results I see from http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress/ with the above php code.  Checking further...

Are there any commercial use restrictions on grabbing data from blockexplore.com? 



ps. got a link for that, jack?

[jackjack]

https://github.com/joric/pywallet/blob/master/pywallet.py

[Viceroy]

thank you thank you.  dang dude, I can't dive into a 1700 line program right now.  what's that do with all those lines?

fwiw my code is down to 7 lines, and two of those are comments.

Code:

<?php // use with validator.php?refund=btc-address-here
$validateBTCURL = 'http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress/' . $_GET["refund"];
//echo $validateBTCURL;
$validBTC = file_get_contents($validateBTCURL);
//echo $validBTC;
if($validBTC == "00"){
	//do something
	} else {
	//do something else
	}
?> 

[jackjack]

That's why I told you to look for the definition of DecodeBase58Check in the code, that's the function to decode address to hash160

[theymos]

I'm not getting the same results I see from http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress/ with the above php code.  Checking further...

In what cases? It should be identical other than /q/checkaddress's additional info about why the address failed.

[Viceroy]

after further testing it appears to be working as expected.  Here's the working code:


called with:

http://yourdomain/btcvalidate.php?address="btc-address-here"



btcvalidate.php:

Code:

<?php include("base58.php"); ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<!---  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  --->
<!--- name this file btcvalidate.php on webserver --->
<!---                                             --->
<!--- place base58.php in same directory          --->
<!---                                             --->
<!--- call with btc address as get function:      --->
<!--- btcvalidate.php?address="btc-address-here"      --->
<!---                                             --->
<!--- warning: no checking on input               --->
<!---  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  --->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>btc address validator</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
$address = $_GET["address"];
if(preg_match('/^[1-9A-HJ-NP-Za-km-z]+$/', $address) && strlen($address) <= 34 && checkAddress($address)){
	echo    "<p>address is valid</p>";
	} else {
	echo    "<p>address is NOT valid</p>";
	}
?>  
</body>
</html>

base58.php:

Code:

<?php
/*
<!---  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  --->
<!--- name this file base58.php on webserver      --->
<!---  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  --->
*/
//hex input must be in uppercase, with no leading 0x
define("ADDRESSVERSION","00"); //this is a hex byte

function decodeHex($hex){
	$hex=strtoupper($hex);
	$chars="0123456789ABCDEF";
	$return="0";
	for($i=0;$i<strlen($hex);$i++){
		$current=(string)strpos($chars,$hex[$i]);
		$return=(string)bcmul($return,"16",0);
		$return=(string)bcadd($return,$current,0);
	}
	return $return;
}

function encodeHex($dec){
	$chars="0123456789ABCDEF";
	$return="";
	while (bccomp($dec,0)==1){
		$dv=(string)bcdiv($dec,"16",0);
		$rem=(integer)bcmod($dec,"16");
		$dec=$dv;
		$return=$return.$chars[$rem];
	}
	return strrev($return);
}

function decodeBase58($base58){
	$origbase58=$base58;
	
	$chars="123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz";
	$return="0";
	for($i=0;$i<strlen($base58);$i++){
		$current=(string)strpos($chars,$base58[$i]);
		$return=(string)bcmul($return,"58",0);
		$return=(string)bcadd($return,$current,0);
	}
	
	$return=encodeHex($return);
	
	//leading zeros
	for($i=0;$i<strlen($origbase58)&&$origbase58[$i]=="1";$i++){
		$return="00".$return;
	}
	
	if(strlen($return)%2!=0){
		$return="0".$return;
	}
	
	return $return;
}

function encodeBase58($hex){
	if(strlen($hex)%2!=0){
		die("encodeBase58: uneven number of hex characters");
	}
	$orighex=$hex;
	
	$chars="123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz";
	$hex=decodeHex($hex);
	$return="";
	while (bccomp($hex,0)==1){
		$dv=(string)bcdiv($hex,"58",0);
		$rem=(integer)bcmod($hex,"58");
		$hex=$dv;
		$return=$return.$chars[$rem];
	}
	$return=strrev($return);
	
	//leading zeros
	for($i=0;$i<strlen($orighex)&&substr($orighex,$i,2)=="00";$i+=2){
		$return="1".$return;
	}
	
	return $return;
}

function hash160ToAddress($hash160,$addressversion=ADDRESSVERSION){
	$hash160=$addressversion.$hash160;
	$check=pack("H*" , $hash160);
	$check=hash("sha256",hash("sha256",$check,true));
	$check=substr($check,0,8);
	$hash160=strtoupper($hash160.$check);
	return encodeBase58($hash160);
}

function addressToHash160($addr){
	$addr=decodeBase58($addr);
	$addr=substr($addr,2,strlen($addr)-10);
	return $addr;
}

function checkAddress($addr,$addressversion=ADDRESSVERSION){
	$addr=decodeBase58($addr);
	if(strlen($addr)!=50){
		return false;
	}
	$version=substr($addr,0,2);
	if(hexdec($version)>hexdec($addressversion)){
		return false;
	}
	$check=substr($addr,0,strlen($addr)-8);
	$check=pack("H*" , $check);
	$check=strtoupper(hash("sha256",hash("sha256",$check,true)));
	$check=substr($check,0,8);
	return $check==substr($addr,strlen($addr)-8);
}

function hash160($data){
	$data=pack("H*" , $data);
	return strtoupper(hash("ripemd160",hash("sha256",$data,true)));
}

function pubKeyToAddress($pubkey){
	return hash160ToAddress(hash160($pubkey));
}

function remove0x($string){
	if(substr($string,0,2)=="0x"||substr($string,0,2)=="0X"){
		$string=substr($string,2);
	}
	return $string;
}

?>

[Eisenhower34]

The code mentioned in the original post returns true for BTC and LTC addresses, because

Code:

get_bcaddress_version(address)

returns 0 for BTC addresses and 48 for LTC addresses, so both is not None. I wouldnt call this a bug, more a feature that allowes to check other coin addresses.

[Melbustus]

why is there no simple tool like  http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress

/q/checkaddress uses this plus some extra checking. Note that the checkAddress function assumes that the input is valid base58. Do something like:

Code:

if(preg_match('/^[1-9A-HJ-NP-Za-km-z]+$/', $address) && strlen($address) <= 34 && checkAddress($address))
    address is valid

theymos - that pastebin-linked code is yours, right, from: http://code.gogulski.com/bitcoin-php/

Just want to make sure the public domain license applies before I integrate.

Thanks!

[theymos]

The pastebin code is mine and public domain. That bitcoin-php library is a separate thing that I wasn't involved with.

[Melbustus]

The pastebin code is mine and public domain. That bitcoin-php library is a separate thing that I wasn't involved with.

Great, thanks. I just glanced at the function sigs and assumed they were by the same author. In any event, I just integrated your code from that pastebin link. That was easy - thanks very much!

[super3]

Is there any standalone Python code floating around out there? This is what I am using right now:

Code:

	def validate_address(self, address):
		"""
		Does simple validation of a bitcoin-like address.
		Source: http://bit.ly/17OhFP5

		param : address : an ASCII or unicode string, of a bitcoin address.
		returns : boolean, indicating that the address has a correct format.

		"""

		address = self.clean(address)
		# The first character indicates the "version" of the address.
		CHARS_OK_FIRST = "123"
		# alphanumeric characters without : l I O 0
		CHARS_OK = "123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"

		# We do not check the high length limit of the address.
		# Usually, it is 35, but nobody knows what could happen in the future.
		if len(address) < 27:
			return False
		elif address[0] not in CHARS_OK_FIRST:
			return False

		# We use the function "all" by passing it an enumerator as parameter.
		# It does a little optimization :
		# if one of the character is not valid, the next ones are not tested.
		return all( ( char in CHARS_OK for char in address[1:] ) )

[airborne305]

This is regardless of whatever language you are trying to use and will require a bitcoind wallet running on your machine. basically take whatever text field that has the string you're trying to validate and turn it into a variable.


in your app or web page... textbox = $varAddress

onclick or script... whatever, send this to the wallet.
bitcoind validateaddress $varAddress

monitor response from [isvalid]. if "true," execute code. if false, execute other code.



Valid Address: [isvalid] = true            [address] = submitted address

Code:

server:~$ bitcoind validateaddress mkZuF2onXAxyGuuvoALbPEesMg99uv6k7r
{
    "isvalid" : true,
    "address" : "mkZuF2onXAxyGuuvoALbPEesMg99uv6k7r",
    "ismine" : false
}

Invalid Address: [isvalid] = false

Code:

server:~$ bitcoind validateaddress mkZuF2onXAxyGuuvoALbPEeIMg99uv6k7r 
{
    "isvalid" : false
}

Invalid Address: [isvalid] = false

Code:

server:~$ bitcoind validateaddress 7kZuF2onXAxyGuuvoALbPEeIMg99uv6k7r
{
    "isvalid" : false
}

[Podey]

I wrote an Ada version of the bitcoin address validation code and posted it at rosettacode.org.
The example address someone posted in this thread, "miwxGypTcHDXT3m4avmrMMC4co7XWqbG9r," gets reported as invalid, but it also gets reported as invalid by http://blockexplorer.com/q/checkaddress/miwxGypTcHDXT3m4avmrMMC4co7XWqbG9r
Does someone have a quick answer to this puzzle? Ada is a good language to write reliable code, so I think it would be a good idea to have reference code for Ada for key functions like this.

 

[Podey]

OK, duh, the problem was with the version number. The address' version is 6F, which is bogus, but otherwise it is valid. Code which doesn't care about the version number will report the address as valid.

[PyTis]

Special thanks to Gavin Anderson

So I re-worked Gavin's code just a little bit, so I could basically type cast a Bitcoin address.

Below is my code.  Please let me know if you find any issues.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
# Special thanks to Gavin Andresen from bitcointalk.org
# in reference to: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1026.0
# Edited By/Author Josh Lee PyTis.com, I also release my changes into the
# public domain.
"""

class BTCaddress(str):
	""" Custom Bitcoin Address Verify-turend into a type for type-casting.
	"""
	import re

	address_pattern = "[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$"
	address_expr = re.compile(r"%s"%address_pattern)
	__b58chars = '123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz'
	__b58base = len(__b58chars)
	_valid = False
	_version = None

	def __new__(cls,val):
		if val is None:
			# allow None to be passed in, so that we may clear out bitcoin addresses
			# if you want, youc an raise an error instead, so that None doesn't pass silently
			inst = str.__new__(cls, None)
			inst._valid = False
			inst._version = None
			return inst

		# I don't know if there could be a valid address with only numbers, but just in-case
		if isinstance(val, int): val = str(val) 

		# remove preceading and trailing whitespace
		if isinstance(val, basestring): 
			val = val.strip() 
			if not val:
				# again, allow '' to be passed in, so that we may clear out bitcoin addresses
				# if you want, you can raise an error instead, so that None doesn't pass silently
				inst = str.__new__(cls, None)
				inst._valid = False
				inst._version = None
				return inst
			else:
				if not cls.address_expr.match(val):
					raise ValueError('Invalid Bitcoin address. Bad RE match r"%s".' % cls.address_pattern)
				version = cls.getVersion(val)
				if version is None:
					raise ValueError('Invalid Bitcoin address. Version Missmatch: %r' % version)
				else:
					inst = str.__new__(cls, val)
					inst._valid = True
					inst._version = version
					return inst
		else:
			raise TypeError('Invalid Bitcoin address. Not a string.')
	
	valid = property(lambda s: s._valid)
	version = property(lambda s: s._version)

	@classmethod
	def getVersion(cls, strAddress):
		""" Returns None if strAddress is invalid.	Otherwise returns integer version of address. """
		from Crypto.Hash import SHA256
		addr = cls.b58decode(strAddress,25)
		if addr is None: return None
		version = addr[0]
		checksum = addr[-4:]
		vh160 = addr[:-4] # Version plus hash160 is what is checksummed																																																		
		h3=SHA256.new(SHA256.new(vh160).digest()).digest()
		if h3[0:4] == checksum:
			return ord(version)
		return None

	@classmethod
	def b58encode(cls, v):
		""" encode v, which is a string of bytes, to base58.
		"""
		long_value = 0L
		for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
			long_value += (256**i) * ord(c)
		result = ''
		while long_value >= cls.__b58base:
			div, mod = divmod(long_value, cls.__b58base)
			result = cls.__b58chars[mod] + result
			long_value = div
		result = cls.__b58chars[long_value] + result

		# Bitcoin does a little leading-zero-compression:																																																									
		# leading 0-bytes in the input become leading-1s																																																									 
		nPad = 0
		for c in v:
			if c == '\0': nPad += 1
			else: break

		return (cls.__b58chars[0]*nPad) + result

	@classmethod
	def b58decode(cls, v, length):
		""" decode v into a string of len bytes																																																														
		"""
		long_value = 0L
		for (i, c) in enumerate(v[::-1]):
			long_value += cls.__b58chars.find(c) * (cls.__b58base**i)

		result = ''
		while long_value >= 256:
			div, mod = divmod(long_value, 256)
			result = chr(mod) + result
			long_value = div
		result = chr(long_value) + result

		nPad = 0
		for c in v:
			if c == cls.__b58chars[0]: nPad += 1
			else: break

		result = chr(0)*nPad + result
		if length is not None and len(result) != length:
			return None

		return result

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
# END OF Custom Type class.
# 



#
# tests below
# I found a page on a bitcoin wiki to explain to me different bitcoin address
# versions, I decided to test these, and other things that could go wrong.
# I then altered my code above, to get desired results.
#
# For more information on bitcoin address versions, please follow link:
# https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/List_of_address_prefixes

tests = [
	'17VZNX1SN5NtKa8UQFxwQbFeFc3iqRYhem', # version 0 || TEST 1
	u'3EktnHQD7RiAE6uzMj2ZifT9YgRrkSgzQX', # version 5 || TEST 2
	'LhK2kQwiaAvhjWY799cZvMyYwnQAcxkarr', # vesrion 48 || TEST 3
	'NATX6zEUNfxfvgVwz8qVnnw3hLhhYXhgQn', # version 52 || TEST 4
	'mipcBbFg9gMiCh81Kj8tqqdgoZub1ZJRfn', # version 111 || TEST 5
	'5Hwgr3u458GLafKBgxtssHSPqJnYoGrSzgQsPwLFhLNYskDPyyA', # version 128 || TEST 6
	'92Pg46rUhgTT7romnV7iGW6W1gbGdeezqdbJCzShkCsYNzyyNcc', # version 239 || TEST 7
	None, # testing None, No version || TEST 8
	' 1111111111111111111114oLvT2', # test from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1026.0 || TEST 9
	float(123456789.01), #|| TEST 10
	bool(True), # || TEST 11
	'', # || TEST 12
	'1NnZEPLmBEK2HryY4heeJQhQPB8LLbNiPe' # my bitcoin address :-) || TEST 13
]

for i, test in enumerate(tests):
	print '-'*80
	print 'typeof test: ', type(test)
	print 'original value: ', test
	try:
		t = BTCaddress(test)
	except TypeError, e:
		print "TypeError: %s" % str(e)
	except  ValueError, e:
		print "ValueError: %s" % str(e)
	else:
		print 'test %s' % i, t
		print 'test %s.type' % i, type(t)
		print 'test %s.valid' % i, t.valid
		print 'test %s.version' % i, t.version
		print 't.getVersion()', t.getVersion(str(t))

	print

-- fixed

Test output below:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  17VZNX1SN5NtKa8UQFxwQbFeFc3iqRYhem
test 0 17VZNX1SN5NtKa8UQFxwQbFeFc3iqRYhem
test 0.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 0.valid True
test 0.version 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'unicode'>
original value:  3EktnHQD7RiAE6uzMj2ZifT9YgRrkSgzQX
test 1 3EktnHQD7RiAE6uzMj2ZifT9YgRrkSgzQX
test 1.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 1.valid True
test 1.version 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  LhK2kQwiaAvhjWY799cZvMyYwnQAcxkarr
test 2 LhK2kQwiaAvhjWY799cZvMyYwnQAcxkarr
test 2.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 2.valid True
test 2.version 48
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  NATX6zEUNfxfvgVwz8qVnnw3hLhhYXhgQn
test 3 NATX6zEUNfxfvgVwz8qVnnw3hLhhYXhgQn
test 3.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 3.valid True
test 3.version 52
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  mipcBbFg9gMiCh81Kj8tqqdgoZub1ZJRfn
test 4 mipcBbFg9gMiCh81Kj8tqqdgoZub1ZJRfn
test 4.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 4.valid True
test 4.version 111
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  5Hwgr3u458GLafKBgxtssHSPqJnYoGrSzgQsPwLFhLNYskDPyyA
ValueError: Invalid Bitcoin address. Bad RE match r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  92Pg46rUhgTT7romnV7iGW6W1gbGdeezqdbJCzShkCsYNzyyNcc
ValueError: Invalid Bitcoin address. Bad RE match r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'NoneType'>
original value:  None
test 7 None
test 7.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 7.valid False
test 7.version None
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:   1111111111111111111114oLvT2
test 8 1111111111111111111114oLvT2
test 8.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 8.valid True
test 8.version 0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'float'>
original value:  123456789.01
TypeError: Invalid Bitcoin address. Not a string.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'bool'>
original value:  True
ValueError: Invalid Bitcoin address. Bad RE match r"[a-zA-Z1-9]{27,35}$".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  
test 11 None
test 11.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 11.valid False
test 11.version None
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
typeof test:  <type 'str'>
original value:  1NnZEPLmBEK2HryY4heeJQhQPB8LLbNiPe
test 12 1NnZEPLmBEK2HryY4heeJQhQPB8LLbNiPe
test 12.type <class '__main__.BTCaddress'>
test 12.valid True
test 12.version 0

-- last fix was just a typo in a code's comment

[kadoban]

A few people mentioned a 27 character bitcoin address, but there's been no mention that 26 character addresses exist. 11111111111111111111ufYVpS is an example.  The odds of it actually coming up in practice seem astronomical, but it is still valid (and a couple of the code examples here give a false negative for it).