The state contains information whose cryptographic digest is included in block headers, and thus is necessary for validating new blocks. For instance, the validators set and the results of transactions are never included in blocks, but their Merkle roots are: the state keeps track of them.
The State object itself is an implementation detail, since it is never
included in a block or gossiped over the network, and we never compute
its hash. The persistence or query interface of the State object
is an implementation detail and not included in the specification.
However, the types in the State object are part of the specification, since
the Merkle roots of the State objects are included in blocks and values are used during
validation.
type State struct {
ChainID string
InitialHeight int64
LastBlockHeight int64
LastBlockID types.BlockID
LastBlockTime time.Time
Version Version
LastResults []Result
AppHash []byte
LastValidators ValidatorSet
Validators ValidatorSet
NextValidators ValidatorSet
ConsensusParams ConsensusParams
}
The chain ID and initial height are taken from the genesis file, and not changed again. The
initial height will be 1 in the typical case, 0 is an invalid value.
Note there is a hard-coded limit of 10000 validators. This is inherited from the limit on the number of votes in a commit.
Further information on Validator’s,
ValidatorSet’s and
ConsensusParams’s can
be found in data structures
State gets updated at the end of executing a block. Of specific interest is EndBlockResponse and
CommitResponse
type EndBlockResponse struct {
ValidatorUpdates []ValidatorUpdate `protobuf:"bytes,1,rep,name=validator_updates,json=validatorUpdates,proto3" json:"validator_updates"`
ConsensusParamUpdates *types1.ConsensusParams `protobuf:"bytes,2,opt,name=consensus_param_updates,json=consensusParamUpdates,proto3" json:"consensus_param_updates,omitempty"`
Events []Event `protobuf:"bytes,3,rep,name=events,proto3" json:"events,omitempty"`
}
where
type ValidatorUpdate struct {
Power int64 `protobuf:"varint,2,opt,name=power,proto3" json:"power,omitempty"`
PubKeyBytes []byte `protobuf:"bytes,3,opt,name=pub_key_bytes,json=pubKeyBytes,proto3" json:"pub_key_bytes,omitempty"`
PubKeyType string `protobuf:"bytes,4,opt,name=pub_key_type,json=pubKeyType,proto3" json:"pub_key_type,omitempty"`
}
and
type CommitResponse struct {
// reserve 1
Data []byte `protobuf:"bytes,2,opt,name=data,proto3" json:"data,omitempty"`
RetainHeight int64 `protobuf:"varint,3,opt,name=retain_height,json=retainHeight,proto3" json:"retain_height,omitempty"`
}
ValidatorUpdates are used to add and remove validators to the current set as well as update
validator power. Setting validator power to 0 in ValidatorUpdate will cause the validator to be
removed. ConsensusParams are safely copied across (i.e. if a field is nil it gets ignored) and the
Data from the CommitResponse is used as the AppHash
type Version struct {
consensus Consensus
software string
}
Consensus contains the protocol version for the blockchain and the
application.
The total size of a block is limited in bytes by the ConsensusParams.Block.MaxBytes.
Proposed blocks must be less than this size, and will be considered invalid
otherwise.
The Application may set ConsensusParams.Block.MaxBytes to -1.
In that case, the actual block limit is set to 100 MB,
and CometBFT will provide all transactions in the mempool as part of PrepareProposal.
The application has to be careful to return a list of transactions in PrepareProposalResponse
whose size is less than or equal to PrepareProposalRequest.MaxTxBytes.
Blocks should additionally be limited by the amount of “gas” consumed by the transactions in the block, though this is not yet implemented.
For evidence in a block to be valid, it must satisfy:
block.Header.Time-evidence.Time < ConsensusParams.Evidence.MaxAgeDuration &&
block.Header.Height-evidence.Height < ConsensusParams.Evidence.MaxAgeNumBlocks
A block must not contain more than ConsensusParams.Evidence.MaxBytes of evidence. This is
implemented to mitigate spam attacks.
Validators from genesis file and EndBlockResponse must have pubkeys of type ∈
ConsensusParams.Validator.PubKeyTypes.