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Files

merge-script 4da01123df Merge bitcoin/bitcoin#30595 : kernel: Introduce C header API

6c7a34f3b0 kernel: Add Purpose section to header documentation (TheCharlatan)
7e9f00bcc1 kernel: Allowing reducing exports (TheCharlatan)
7990463b10 kernel: Add pure kernel bitcoin-chainstate (TheCharlatan)
36ec9a3ea2 Kernel: Add functions for working with outpoints (TheCharlatan)
5eec7fa96a kernel: Add block hash type and block tree utility functions to C header (TheCharlatan)
f5d5d1213c kernel: Add function to read block undo data from disk to C header (TheCharlatan)
09d0f62638 kernel: Add functions to read block from disk to C header (TheCharlatan)
a263a4caf2 kernel: Add function for copying block data to C header (TheCharlatan)
b30e15f432 kernel: Add functions for the block validation state to C header (TheCharlatan)
aa262da7bc kernel: Add validation interface to C header (TheCharlatan)
d27e27758d kernel: Add interrupt function to C header (TheCharlatan)
1976b13be9 kernel: Add import blocks function to C header (TheCharlatan)
a747ca1f51 kernel: Add chainstate load options for in-memory dbs in C header (TheCharlatan)
070e77732c kernel: Add options for reindexing in C header (TheCharlatan)
ad80abc73d kernel: Add block validation to C header (TheCharlatan)
cb1590b05e kernel: Add chainstate loading when instantiating a ChainstateManager (TheCharlatan)
e2c1bd3d71 kernel: Add chainstate manager option for setting worker threads (TheCharlatan)
65571c36a2 kernel: Add chainstate manager object to C header (TheCharlatan)
c62f657ba3 kernel: Add notifications context option to C header (TheCharlatan)
9e1bac4585 kernel: Add chain params context option to C header (TheCharlatan)
337ea860df kernel: Add kernel library context object (TheCharlatan)
28d679bad9 kernel: Add logging to kernel library C header (TheCharlatan)
2cf136dec4 kernel: Introduce initial kernel C header API (TheCharlatan)

Pull request description:

  This is a first attempt at introducing a C header for the libbitcoinkernel library that may be used by external applications for interfacing with Bitcoin Core's validation logic. It currently is limited to operations on blocks. This is a conscious choice, since it already offers a lot of powerful functionality, but sits just on the cusp of still being reviewable scope-wise while giving some pointers on how the rest of the API could look like.

  The current design was informed by the development of some tools using the C header:

  * A re-implementation (part of this pull request) of [bitcoin-chainstate](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/bitcoin-chainstate.cpp).
  * A re-implementation of the python [block linearize](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/contrib/linearize) scripts: https://github.com/TheCharlatan/bitcoin/tree/kernelLinearize
  * A silent payment scanner: https://github.com/josibake/silent-payments-scanner
  * An electrs index builder: https://github.com/josibake/electrs/commits/electrs-kernel-integration
  * A rust bitcoin node: https://github.com/TheCharlatan/kernel-node
  * A reindexer: https://github.com/TheCharlatan/bitcoin/tree/kernelApi_Reindexer

  The library has also been used by other developers already:

  * A historical block analysis tool: https://github.com/ismaelsadeeq/mining-analysis
  * A swiftsync hints generator: https://github.com/theStack/swiftsync-hints-gen
  * Fast script validation in floresta: https://github.com/vinteumorg/Floresta/pull/456
  * A swiftsync node implementation: https://github.com/2140-dev/swiftsync/tree/master/node

  Next to the C++ header also made available in this pull request, bindings for other languages are available here:

  * Rust: https://github.com/TheCharlatan/rust-bitcoinkernel
  * Python: https://github.com/stickies-v/py-bitcoinkernel
  * Go: https://github.com/stringintech/go-bitcoinkernel
  * Java: https://github.com/yuvicc/java-bitcoinkernel

  The rust bindings include unit and fuzz tests for the API.

  The header currently exposes logic for enabling the following functionality:
  * Feature-parity with the now deprecated libbitcoin-consensus
  * Optimized sha256 implementations that were not available to previous users of libbitcoin-consensus thanks to a static kernel context
  * Full support for logging as well as control over categories and severity
  * Feature parity with the existing experimental bitcoin-chainstate
  * Traversing the block index as well as using block index entries for reading block and undo data.
  * Running the chainstate in memory
  * Reindexing (both full and chainstate-only)
  * Interrupting long-running functions

  The pull request introduces a new kernel-only test binary that purely relies on the kernel C header and the C++ standard library. This is intentionally done to show its capabilities without relying on other code inside the project. This may be relaxed to include some of the existing utilities, or even be merged into the existing test suite.

  The complete docs for the API as well as some usage examples are hosted on [thecharlatan.ch/kernel-docs](https://thecharlatan.ch/kernel-docs/index.html). The docs are generated from the following repository (which also holds the examples): [github.com/TheCharlatan/kernel-docs](https://github.com/TheCharlatan/kernel-docs).

  #### How can I review this PR?

  Scrutinize the commit messages, run the tests, write your own little applications using the library, let your favorite code sanitizer loose on it, hook it up to your fuzzing infrastructure, profile the difference between the existing bitcoin-chainstate and the bitcoin-chainstate introduced here, be nitty on the documentation, police the C interface, opine on your own API design philosophy.

  To get a feeling for the API, read through the tests, or one of the examples.

  To configure this PR for making the shared library and the bitcoin-chainstate and test_kernel utilities available:
  ```
  cmake -B build -DBUILD_KERNEL_LIB=ON -DBUILD_UTIL_CHAINSTATE=ON
  ```

  Once compiled the library is part of the build artifacts that can be installed with:
  ```
  cmake --install build
  ```

  #### Why a C header (and not a C++ header)

  * Shipping a shared library with a C++ header is hard, because of name mangling and an unstable ABI.
  * Mature and well-supported tooling for integrating C exists for nearly every popular language.
  * C offers a reasonably stable ABI

  Also see https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/30595#issuecomment-2285719575.

  #### What about versioning?

  The header and library are still experimental and I would expect this to remain so for some time, so best not to worry about versioning yet.

  #### Potential future additions

  In future, the C header could be expanded to support (some of these have been roughly implemented):

  * Handling transactions, block headers, coins cache, utxo set, meta data, and the mempool
  * Adapters for an abstract coins store
  * Adapters for an abstract block store
  * Adapters for an abstract block tree store
  * Allocators and buffers for more efficient memory usage
  * An "[io-less](https://sans-io.readthedocs.io/how-to-sans-io.html)" interface
  * Hooks for an external mempool, or external policy rules

  #### Current drawbacks

  * For external applications to read the block index of an existing Bitcoin Core node, Bitcoin Core needs to shut down first, since leveldb does not support reading across multiple processes. Other than migrating away from leveldb, there does not seem to be a solution for this problem. Such a migration is implemented in #32427.
  * The fatal error handling through the notifications is awkward. This is partly improved through #29642.
  * Handling shared pointers in the interfaces is unfortunate. They make ownership and freeing of the resources fuzzy and poison the interfaces with additional types and complexity. However, they seem to be an artifact of the current code that interfaces with the validation engine. The validation engine itself does not seem to make extensive use of these shared pointers.
  * If multiple instances of the same type of objects are used, there is no mechanism for distinguishing the log messages produced by each of them. A potential solution is #30342.
  * The background leveldb compaction thread may not finish in time leading to a non-clean exit. There seems to be nothing we can do about this, outside of patching leveldb.

ACKs for top commit:
  alexanderwiederin:
    re-ACK 6c7a34f3b0
  stringintech:
    re-ACK 6c7a34f
  laanwj:
    Code review ACK 6c7a34f3b0
  ismaelsadeeq:
    reACK 6c7a34f3b0 👾
  fanquake:
    ACK 6c7a34f3b0 - soon we'll be running bitcoin (kernel)

Tree-SHA512: ffe7d4581facb7017d06da8b685b81f4b5e4840576e878bb6845595021730eab808d8f9780ed0eb0d2b57f2647c85dcb36b6325180caaac469eaf339f7258030

2025-11-04 15:38:42 +00:00

test_runner

Merge bitcoin/bitcoin#30595 : kernel: Introduce C header API

2025-11-04 15:38:42 +00:00

check-doc.py

bitcoin: Make wrapper not require -m

2025-09-17 04:57:09 -04:00

commit-script-check.sh

lint: commit-script-check.sh: echo to stderr

2024-10-09 18:00:42 +02:00

git-subtree-check.sh

scripted-diff: Bump copyright headers

2021-12-30 19:36:57 +02:00

lint_ignore_dirs.py

doc: add & amend copyright headers

2025-05-20 09:43:21 +01:00

lint-circular-dependencies.py

versionbits: Split out internal details into impl header

2025-01-21 00:38:03 +10:00

lint-files.py

doc: Remove shebang section

2025-05-21 16:17:14 +02:00

lint-include-guards.py

doc: Remove section about include guards

2025-05-21 16:17:51 +02:00

lint-includes.py

doc: Remove dev note section on includes

2025-05-21 16:17:45 +02:00

lint-locale-dependence.py

Merge bitcoin/bitcoin#32434 : lint: Remove string exclusion from locale check

2025-05-08 10:42:30 +01:00

lint-python-dead-code.py

lint: Convert Python dead code linter to Python

2022-04-06 00:55:22 +02:00

lint-python-utf8-encoding.py

lint: Ignore check_fileopens failure on **kwargs

2023-07-20 09:15:43 +02:00

lint-python.py

lint: Speed up flake8 checks

2024-08-29 07:03:42 +02:00

lint-qt-translation.py

lint: Add lint-qt-translation.py

2023-10-23 15:07:02 +01:00

lint-shell-locale.py

refactor: cleanups post unsubtree'ing univalue

2022-06-15 12:56:44 +01:00

lint-shell.py

lint: Include test_utxo_snapshots in lint_shell

2023-10-13 14:06:06 +02:00

lint-spelling.py

doc: Updating docs from autotools to cmake

2024-09-18 11:04:52 -04:00

lint-submodule.py

scripted-diff: Use new python 3.7 keywords

2023-01-18 13:00:34 +01:00

lint-tests.py

tests: speed up coins_tests by parallelizing

2025-07-22 12:56:26 +10:00

README.md

ci: Add missing errexit to lint CI install

2025-06-18 14:11:11 +02:00

spelling.ignore-words.txt

doc: fix typos

2025-06-03 08:09:28 +01:00

README.md

This folder contains lint scripts.

Running locally

To run linters locally with the same versions as the CI environment, use the included Dockerfile:

DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build -t bitcoin-linter --file "./ci/lint_imagefile" ./ && docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/bitcoin -it bitcoin-linter

Building the container can be done every time, because it is fast when the result is cached and it prevents issues when the image changes.

test runner

To run all the lint checks in the test runner outside the docker you first need to install the rust toolchain using your package manager of choice or rustup.

Then you can use:

( cd ./test/lint/test_runner/ && cargo fmt && cargo clippy && RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run )

If you wish to run individual lint checks, run the test_runner with --lint=TEST_TO_RUN arguments. If running with cargo run, arguments after -- are passed to the binary you are running e.g.:

( cd ./test/lint/test_runner/ && RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run -- --lint=doc --lint=trailing_whitespace )

To see a list of all individual lint checks available in test_runner, use -h or --help:

( cd ./test/lint/test_runner/ && RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run -- --help )

Dependencies

Lint test	Dependency
`lint-python.py`	lief
`lint-python.py`	mypy
`lint-python.py`	pyzmq
`lint-python-dead-code.py`	vulture
`lint-shell.py`	ShellCheck
`lint-spelling.py`	codespell
`py_lint`	ruff
markdown link check	mlc

In use versions and install instructions are available in the CI setup.

Please be aware that on Linux distributions all dependencies are usually available as packages, but could be outdated.

Running the tests

Individual tests can be run by directly calling the test script, e.g.:

test/lint/lint-files.py

check-doc.py

Check for missing documentation of command line options.

commit-script-check.sh

Verification of scripted diffs. Scripted diffs are only assumed to run on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. Running them on other operating systems might require installing GNU tools, such as GNU sed.

git-subtree-check.sh

Run this script from the root of the repository to verify that a subtree matches the contents of the commit it claims to have been updated to.

Usage: test/lint/git-subtree-check.sh [-r] DIR [COMMIT]
       test/lint/git-subtree-check.sh -?

DIR is the prefix within the repository to check.
COMMIT is the commit to check, if it is not provided, HEAD will be used.
-r checks that subtree commit is present in repository.

To do a full check with -r, make sure that you have fetched the upstream repository branch in which the subtree is maintained:

for src/crc32c: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/crc32c-subtree.git (branch bitcoin-fork)
for src/crypto/ctaes: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/ctaes.git (branch master)
for src/ipc/libmultiprocess: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/libmultiprocess (branch master)
for src/leveldb: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/leveldb-subtree.git (branch bitcoin-fork)
for src/minisketch: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/minisketch.git (branch master)
for src/secp256k1: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1.git (branch master)

Keep this list in sync with fn get_subtrees() in the lint runner.

To do so, add the upstream repository as remote:

git remote add --fetch secp256k1 https://github.com/bitcoin-core/secp256k1.git

lint_ignore_dirs.py

Add list of common directories to ignore when running tests