Having a "full node"

[coinerd]

Hi I've been looking around to sort this out, and I can't find an answer.

I thought the bitcoind/bitcoin-qt clients were basically identical in function and ran a "full node" storing the entire block chain.

Is this wrong?  Even in what seem to be recent threads stating that the software is a full node but if I query it for transaction data it tells me nothing. I get an error that it doesn't have any info about that transaction, this despite saying it has the block chain.

IS there something that I'm missing, or is that information not available via JSON-RPC?  (In thich case what is gettransaction actually for?)

Also if bitcoind can't be made to operate as a "full node" what sort of software should I use?
Thanks for any help.

[grue]

bitcoin-qt is a "full node" in terms of network participation. This means it can generate and propigate blocks plus verify and relay transactions. It also has a full history of the blockchain available to it. However, by default, you can not query it for arbitrary data. Only a limited set of data is available using the standard json-rpc API. If you need additional data, you'll need to use a third party API provider, or patch your client. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=724.0

[coinerd]

bitcoin-qt is a "full node" in terms of network participation. This means it can generate and propigate blocks plus verify and relay transactions. It also has a full history of the blockchain available to it. However, by default, you can not query it for arbitrary data. Only a limited set of data is available using the standard json-rpc API. If you need additional data, you'll need to use a third party API provider, or patch your client. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=724.0

Ok thanks, especially for the link.

Is there any actual use case for the "gettransaction" function of the json-RPC api?

[coinerd]

After some further reading that's pretty old stuff and I can't find that referenced branch/fork in github, I'm not sure if it exists how to find it I see only much newer stuff.

Based on having found it working in another fork (litecoin) I'm guessing it was working at some point and deprecated out of bitcoin.

[grau]

The BOP Enterprise Server is also a full node implementation and is designed to build applications on top of it or to data mine the block chain.

You find further information on the site in my signature.

[coinerd]

paydirt:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=89725.0

Grau I have read about bits of proof and some of what you went through to put it out.

I have no idea how to setup a java server environment at this time, or I probably would have tried it.  I'm way too busy trying to learn new stuff already

In any case I was still pecking around and have a client doing bitcoind -txindex=1 -rescan to see if it helps when I found the thread referenced above.

on this node with that enabled I'm able to get the information I wanted. I'm not sure if the command line switches had anything to do with it will test later ...

[grau]

I have no idea how to setup a java server environment at this time, or I probably would have tried it.  I'm way too busy trying to learn new stuff already

You do not need to set up a server to connect to the network, I do it for you if you wish.

Check out example code https://github.com/bitsofproof/bop-api-example to see how easy it is to work with the API served by a node hosted at BOP.

The example is using a Java API. BOP however is accessible through a message bus using STOMP and protobuf both supported by a wide selection of languages. Check out the API layers and doc here:

http://bitsofproof.com:8082/display/BPD/Bits+of+Proof+Documentation+Home