Introduction

Steem Blockchain is a social blockchain which allows the users to post, promote and get rewarded for their content. One of the technical aspects that we have on the Steem Network are the RPC Nodes. These nodes are basically servers that are used to provide information about the blockchain and help in establishing connection with the Steem network.

In this post, we will learn what is RPC Nodes, learn about Steem Developer Portal and its API methods to query data from Steem Blockchain and then get information about a random block to get the author of the block and the time it was created.

1️⃣. What are RPC Nodes❓

RPC Nodes or Remote Procedure Call Nodes are servers which act as a bridge between the users and the Steem Blockchain. It helps you to get different kinds of data of the blockchain, for instance, blocks, transactions and accounts. Whenever you require data from the blockchain, you always do this through these nodes.

These nodes offer various APIs for getting data from the blockchain and for performing particular functions. They are very important for the Steem applications as websites and mobile applications to improve their performance and functionality.

Therefore, it is important to understand that RPC Nodes are an essential part of Steem’s architecture as they allow for easy communication with the blockchain.

2️⃣. Steem Developer Portal and API Methods

The Steem Developer Portal is a vital resource for interacting with the Steem Blockchain. It provides developers with various API methods to query and manipulate blockchain data.Here, we will demonstrate how to use three methods from the condenser_api plugin, excluding the get_block method. By using these methods, we can retrieve different pieces of information from the Steem Blockchain. Screenshots of the API responses are included to illustrate the results.

API Method 1: get_account_history

This method retrieves the history of a specific Steem account, showing recent transactions and activities.

Python Code:

SCREENSHOT

API Method 2: get_state

This method fetches the state of a specific webpage on the Steem Blockchain, such as a blog or profile.

Python Code:

API Method 3: get_discussions_by_blog

This method retrieves the latest blog posts from a specific account.

Python Code:

3️⃣. Retrieving Information About a Random Block

To demonstrate how to interact with the blockchain further, we will fetch information about a random block between block numbers 1,000,000 and 1,500,000. The program will identify the block’s creator and its creation date.

Python Code:

Conclusion

Through this post, we explored the importance of RPC Nodes and their role in accessing the Steem Blockchain. We utilized three different API methods from the Steem Developer Portal to retrieve account history, webpage state, and recent blog discussions. Additionally, we wrote a Python program to fetch details about a random block, demonstrating how to identify its creator and creation date.

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