Overview

Subspace is a framework agnostic JS library that embraces reactive programming with RxJS, by observing asynchronous changes in Smart Contracts, and providing methods to track and subscribe to events, changes to the state of contracts and address balances, and react to these changes and events via observables.

Subspace also takes care of syncing under the hood, saving & loading the state in a local database.

Documentation

https://subspace.embarklabs.io

Install

Subspace can be used in browser, node and native script environments. You can install it through npm or yarn:

npm install --save @embarklabs/subspace web3 rxjs # RxJS and Web3.js are needed peer-dependencies

Usage

Import into a dApp

// ESM (might require babel / browserify)
import Subspace from '@embarklabs/subspace';

// CommonJS
const Subspace = require('@embarklabs/subspace');

Initializing the library

To interact with the EVM, Subspace requires web3.js

const subspace = new Subspace(web3);
await subspace.init();

In addition to the web3 object, Subspace also accepts an options object with settings that can change its behavior:

• dbFilename - Name of the database where the information will be stored (default subspace.db)
• callInterval - Interval of time in milliseconds to query a contract/address to determine changes in state or balance. It's only used with HttpProviders (default: undefined. Obtains data every block using the average block time as an interval).
• refreshLastNBlocks - Ignores last N blocks (from current block), stored in the local db and refresh them via a web3 subscription. Useful for possible reorgs (default: 12),
• disableSubscriptions - Subspace by default will attempt to use websocket subscriptions if the current provider supports them, otherwise it will use polling because it asumes the provider is an HttpProvider. This functionality can be disabled by passing true to this option. (default: undefined)

Contract methods

Enhancing a contract object

Subspace adds a track method to the web3 contract objects. You can obtain this functionality by passing a web3.eth.Contract instance, or the abi and address of your contract

const myContract = subspace.contract(myWeb3ContractInstance);

// OR

const myContract = subspace.contract({abi, address});

Tracking a contract method

You can track changes to a contract state variable, by specifying the view function and arguments to call and query the contract. .track() has the same signature as the .call() function. This will track all the changes in state using a “constant” method without sending any transaction.

const myObservable$ = myContract.methods.myMethodName([param1[, param2[, ...]]]).track({from: web3.eth.defaultAccount})
myObservable$.subscribe(console.dir)

// or

const myObservable$ = subspace.trackProperty(myContract, "myMethodName", [param1,...], {from: web3.eth.defaultAccount})

Tracking a contract event.

Event tracking is done by using the .track() method and passing any optional event filter.

const myObservable$ = myContract.events.MyEvent.track(options)
myObservable$.subscribe(console.dir)

// or...
const myObservable$ = subspace.trackEvent(myContract, "MyEvent", options);

Tracking a contract balance, and a account balance

Track balance changes in ETH or Tokens by optionally specifying the token address. By default it will track ETH balance.

const myObservable$ = myContract.trackBalance([tokenAddress])

// OR

const myObservable$ = subspace.trackBalance(address, [tokenAddress])

Blocks, gas price and block time

trackBlock()

Returns the block information for any new block as soon as they are mined. It's the reactive equivalent to web3.eth.getBlock("latest").

subspace.trackBlock().subscribe(block => console.log(block));

trackBlockNumber()

Returns the latest block number. It's the reactive equivalent to web3.eth.getBlockNumber.

subspace.trackBlockNumber().subscribe(blockNumber => console.log(blockNumber));

trackGasPrice()

Returns the current gas price oracle. It's the reactive equivalent to web3.eth.getGasPrice.

subspace.trackGasPrice().subscribe(gasPrice => console.log(gasPrice));

trackAverageBlocktime()

Returns the moving average block time taking in account the latest 10 blocks. The time is returned in milliseconds:

subspace.trackAverageBlocktime().subscribe(blocktimeMS => console.log(blocktimeMS));

Low level API

trackProperty(contractObject, functionName [, functionArgs] [, callOptions])

Reacts to contract state changes by specifying the view function and arguments to call and query the contract.

const contractObject = ...; // A web3.eth.Contract object initialized with an address and ABI.
const functionName = "..."; // string containing the name of the contract's constant/view function to track.
const functionArgs = []; // array containing the arguments of the function to track. Optional
const callOptions = {from: web3.eth.defaultAccount}; //  Options used for calling. Only `from`, `gas` and `gasPrice` are accepted. Optional
subspace.trackProperty(contractObject, functionName, functionArgs, callOptions)
  .subscribe(console.dir)

This can be used as well to track public state variables, since they implicity create a view function when they're declared public. The functionName would be the same as the variable name, and functionArgs would have a value when the type is a mapping or array (since these require an index value to query them).

trackEvent(contractObject, eventName [, options])

Reacts to contract events and obtain its returned values.

const contractObject = ...; // A web3.eth.Contract object initialized with an address and ABI.
const eventName = "..."; // string containing the name of the event to track.
const options = { filter: { }, fromBlock: 1 }; // options used to query the events. Optional

subspace.trackEvent(contractObject, eventName, options)
        .subscribe(eventData => console.dir);

trackBalance(address [, tokenAddress])

You can also track changes in both ETH and ERC20 token balances for each mined block or time interval depending on the callInterval configured. Balances are returned as a string containing the vaue in wei.

// Tracking ETH balance
const address = "0x0001020304050607080900010203040506070809";

subspace
  .trackBalance(address)
  .subscribe((balance) => {
    console.log("ETH balance is ", balance)
  });

// Tracking ERC20 balance
const address = "0x0001020304050607080900010203040506070809";
const tokenAddress = "0x744d70fdbe2ba4cf95131626614a1763df805b9e"; // SNT Address

subspace.trackBalance(address, tokenAddress)
        .subscribe((balance) => {
          console.log("Token balance is ", balance)
        });

Subscriptions

Subscriptions are triggered each time an observable emits a new value. These subscription receive a callback that must have a parameter which represents the value received from the observable; and they return a subscription.

Subscriptions can be disposed by executing the method unsubscribe() liberating the resource held by it:

const subscription = subspace.trackBalance(address, tokenAddress).subscribe(value => { /* Do something */ });

// ...

subscription.unsubscribe();

Cleanup

If Subspace is not needed anymore, you need can invoke close() to dispose and perform the cleanup necessary to remove the internal subscriptions and interval timers created by Subspace during its normal execution, thus avoiding any potential memory leak.

subspace.close();

Contribution

Thank you for considering to help out with the source code! We welcome contributions from anyone on the internet, and are grateful for even the smallest of fixes!

If you'd like to contribute to Subspace, please fork, fix, commit and send a pull request for the maintainers to review and merge into the main code base. If you wish to submit more complex changes though, please check up with the core devs first on #embark-status channel to ensure those changes are in line with the general philosophy of the project and/or get some early feedback which can make both your efforts much lighter as well as our review and merge procedures quick and simple.

License

MIT