js-digitalbits-sdk

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js-digitalbits-sdk is a Javascript library for communicating with a DigitalBits Frontier server. It is used for building DigitalBits apps either on Node.js or in the browser.

It provides:

  • a networking layer API for Frontier endpoints.
  • facilities for building and signing transactions, for communicating with a DigitalBits Frontier instance, and for submitting transactions or querying network history.

Warning! Node version of digitalbits-base (digitalbits-sdk dependency) package is using ed25519 package, a native implementation of Ed25519 in Node.js, as an optional dependency. This means that if for any reason installation of this package fails, digitalbits-base (and digitalbits-sdk) will fallback to the much slower implementation contained in tweetnacl.

If you are using digitalbits-sdk/digitalbits-base in a browser you can ignore this. However, for production backend deployments you should definitely be using ed25519. If ed25519 is successfully installed and working DigitalBitsSdk.FastSigning variable will be equal true. Otherwise it will be false.

js-digitalbits-sdk vs js-digitalbits-base

js-digitalbits-sdk is a high-level library that serves as client side API for Frontier. This library makes extensive use of the lower-level js-digitalbits-base and exposes js-digitalbits-base classes via its export object. js-digitalbits-base can be used as a standalone library for creating DigitalBits primitive constructs via XDR helpers and wrappers. js-digitalbits-base doesn't depend on connecting to Frontier.

js-digitalbits-sdk exposes all js-digitalbits-base classes so you don't have to install js-digitalbits-base along js-digitalbits-sdk.

Quick start

Using npm to include js-digitalbits-sdk in your own project:

npm install --save digitalbits-sdk

For browsers, use Bower to install js-digitalbits-sdk. It exports a variable DigitalBitsSdk. The example below assumes you have digitalbits-sdk.js relative to your html file.

<script src="digitalbits-sdk.js"></script>
<script>console.log(DigitalBitsSdk);</script>

Install

To use as a module in a Node.js project

  1. Install it using npm:

    npm install --save digitalbits-sdk
  2. require/import it in your JavaScript:

    var DigitalBitsSdk = require('digitalbits-sdk');

Help! I'm having trouble installing the SDK on Windows

Unfortunately, the DigitalBits platform development team mostly works on OS X and Linux, and so sometimes bugs creep through that are specific to windows. When installing digitalbits-sdk on windows, you might see an error that looks similar to the following:

error MSB8020: The build tools for v120 (Platform Toolset = 'v120 ') cannot be found. To build using the v120 build tools, please install v120 build tools.  Alternatively, you may upgrade to the current Visual Studio tools by selecting the Project menu or right-click the solution, and then selecting "Retarget solution"

To resolve this issue, you should upgrade your version of nodejs, node-gyp and then re-attempt to install the offending package using npm install -g --msvs_version=2015 ed25519. Afterwards, retry installing digitalbits-sdk as normal.

If you encounter the error: "failed to find C:\OpenSSL-Win64", You need to install OpenSSL. More information about this issue can be found here.

In the event the above does not work, please join us on our community slack to get help resolving your issue.

To self host for use in the browser

  1. Install it using bower:

    bower install digitalbits-sdk
  2. Include it in the browser:

    <script src="./bower_components/digitalbits-sdk/digitalbits-sdk.js"></script>
    <script>console.log(DigitalBitsSdk);</script>

If you don't want to use install Bower, you can copy built JS files from the bower-js-digitalbits-sdk repo.

To use the cdnjs hosted script in the browser

  1. Instruct the browser to fetch the library from cdnjs, a 3rd party service that hosts js libraries:

    <script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/digitalbits-sdk/{version}/digitalbits-sdk.js"></script>
    <script>console.log(DigitalBitsSdk);</script>

Note that this method relies using a third party to host the JS library. This may not be entirely secure.

Make sure that you are using the latest version number. They can be found on the releases page in Github.

To develop and test js-digitalbits-sdk itself

  1. Clone the repo:

    git clone https://github.com/digitalbitsorg/js-digitalbits-sdk.git
  2. Install dependencies inside js-digitalbits-sdk folder:

    cd js-digitalbits-sdk
    npm install

Usage

For information on how to use js-digitalbits-sdk, take a look at the Developers site.

There is also API Documentation here.

Testing

To run all tests:

gulp test

To run a specific set of tests:

gulp test:node
gulp test:browser

Documentation

Documentation for this repo lives in Developers site.

Contributing

For information on how to contribute, please refer to our contribution guide.

Publishing to npm

npm version [<newversion> | major | minor | patch | premajor | preminor | prepatch | prerelease]

A new version will be published to npm and Bower by Travis CI.

npm >=2.13.0 required. Read more about npm version.

License

js-digitalbits-sdk is licensed under an Apache-2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for details.