Getting Started¶
Requirements¶
To install python-bitcoinlib:
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
pip install python-bitcoinlib
# Or for the latest git version
pip install git+https://github.com/petertodd/python-bitcoinlib
The RPC interface, bitcoin.rpc, is designed to work with Bitcoin Core v0.9.
Older versions mostly work but there do exist some incompatibilities.
Example Code¶
See examples/ directory. For instance this example creates a transaction spending a pay-to-script-hash transaction output:
$ PYTHONPATH=. examples/spend-pay-to-script-hash-txout.py
<hex-encoded transaction>
Also see dust-b-gone for a simple example of Bitcoin Core wallet interaction through the RPC interface: https://github.com/petertodd/dust-b-gone
Selecting the chain to use¶
Do the following:
import bitcoin
bitcoin.SelectParams(NAME)
Where NAME is one of ‘testnet’, ‘mainnet’, or ‘regtest’. The chain currently selected is a global variable that changes behavior everywhere, just like in the Satoshi codebase.