Access current block height inside a custom transaction

Moosty · February 3, 2020, 10:03am

Is it possible to get the current/last block height and maybe even the complete last block inside a transaction?
Readonly will be enough but there is no block statestore and no configured block storage component afaik available inside the transaction class.

michielmulders · February 6, 2020, 10:23am

Hi Moosty

Unfortunately, this is not possible to access the latest block through statestore.
The reason for that is that the latest block is a dynamic piece of data which is not ideal for a custom transaction that needs to be deterministic across all nodes. A block might be received later in other nodes which means they have another latest block, invalidating your transaction.

Although, you can create a custom module for listening to new blocks. The event to listen to is app:updateState or the block events. Still, we do not recommend this solution.

Hope this answer helps you!