Understanding the investment of the Ethereum mining blocking header **
As an aspiring blockchain developer or researcher, it is natural to feel curious about the internal functioning of Ethereum and its mining process. Specifically, it is likely to understand why certain data is stored in a small Endian format inside the block header, which may seem contradictory when construction blocks.
What is a block header?
A block header is the first 4 kB segment of an extracted Ethereum block, which contains metadata describing the transaction group and block content. The header usually consists of 16 to 32 fields, including:
vsize
: the size of the transaction group
Minblockheight
: the minimum height of the block required for a new block to be created
Basehash
: the anterior block header hash (used for work test)
PendingTransations': number of transactions pending in the transaction group
- Target dimensor
: the goal of the mass value to mine the following block
Why the small data from Endian?
Investment Bits is a deliberate design choice made by Ethereum developers. In the order of bytes of Little Endian, the least significant byte (LSB) is stored first.
C
UINT256 VSIZE = 0x0001020304;
In Little Endian:
- vsize
starts with 0x01
, which is stored in the LSB position.
- The following bits are packed from left to right, forming the ‘minblockheight’.
- Other fields are still in this standard.
Data reversal in small Endian format
To build a block header with small data from Endian, you must reverse the order of the fields and pack them in the 4 KB header. Here is an example of python implementation:
`Python
Import strut
DEF Little_endian_reversse (Head):
Inverse field orders
Reverse_header = []
For i at break (16):
vsize
Reverse_header.append (struct.unpack ('! I', (header [i] << 24) | Title [i+1]) [0])
Fields Pack on Little Endian Byte Order
Packed_header = B ''. Join (reverse_header)
Return_header package
Usage Example:
Header = [
0x00, 0x01, 0x02, 0x03, 0x04, 0x05, 0x06, 0x07
]
vsize = 8
Print (little_endian_reversse (header))
This code will issue theVizefield in the small order Endian.
Building a block header
After investing your data, you can use them to create a full block header. Here is an updated example:
Python
Reverso Vsize
vsize = struct.unpack ('! i', (header [0] << 24) | Title [1]) [0]
Packing other fields at the request of Bytle Endian Bytes
Pendendransactions = b ''
Minblockight = B ''
Basehash = B ''
DIFHARYTARGET = B ''
For i at break (16):
Add to pendingTransations, minblockheight, baseh and target difficulty
PendingTransactions += strong.pack ('! I', head [i +2])
Minblockight += struct.pack ('! I', head [i +3])
Basehash += struct.pack ('! I', head [i +4])
Difficulty of difficulty += struct.pack ('! I', head [i +5])
The header of the package block in the Endian Endian bytes request
Block_header = B ''. Join ([vsize] + [pendingTransations, minblockheight, basash, difficulty and arget]))
Print (block_header)
`
This code will generate the full block header in Little Endian Order.
Conclusion
Understand how Ethereum mining blocks work and why certain data are stored in a small Endian format can be a challenging but rewarding experience for blockchain developers. By reversing the field order and packing it in the 4 KB header, you can create a complete block header with the desired bits reversal.