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Using Ethereum as a data source


Smart Contract API

Let’s cover how we can access content from the Cardstack Hub.

The Cardstack Hub uses a RESTful API based on the JSON:API spec that web clients can use to interact with the Cardstack Hub. This allows web clients to perform find, create, update, and delete operations against the content within the Cardstack Hub.

JSON:API

The Cardstack Hub exposes its underlying content via JSON:API. JSON:API is a very powerful specification for building API’s.

From the JSON:API website:

“JSON API is a specification for how a client should request that resources be fetched or modified, and how a server should respond to those requests. JSON API is designed to minimize both the number of requests and the amount of data transmitted between clients and servers. This efficiency is achieved without compromising readability, flexibility, or discoverability.”

Let’s take a look at some example queries for Ethereum content made from our CARD token dashboard on cardstack.com.

On cardstack.com, we have defined an Ethereum data-source with the content-type of card-tokens. Our current CARD token smart contract is deployed to the address: 0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c. To get the document that represents the CARD token smart contract, a web client issues the request that specifies the content-type of the document and the ID of the document (in this case the ID is just the address of the smart contract) : GET https://hub.cardstack.com/api/card-tokens/0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c.

The response looks like this:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
    "type": "card-tokens",
    "attributes": {
      "ethereum-address": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
      "balance-wei": "0",
      "card-token-total-admins-mapping": "0",
      "card-token-allow-transfers": true,
      "card-token-total-frozen-accounts-mapping": "0",
      "card-token-decimals": "18",
      "card-token-token-ledger": "0x13590104E574a9BDfd834a41D32d526f9FfC04db",
      "card-token-contribution-minimum": "0",
      "card-token-frozen-token": false,
      "card-token-successor": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
      "card-token-registry": "0xfc8dEeB5cD80A3e8B8DE353Df9b5b09c71d3Ef17",
      "card-token-external-storage": "0x0174F7eAF415384BA8e8fa0884c0F3dC4604B6cC",
      "card-token-owner": "0x0AEaF8c2Fe778797CD5464E7EB8351d28da2E823",
      "card-token-total-super-admins-mapping": "4",
      "card-token-predecessor": "0x1ed2B1eaEd8e968bc36EB90a914660A71827A5E9",
      "card-token-is-deprecated": false,
      "card-token-ledger-name": "ledger-CARD",
      "card-token-halt-purchase": true,
      "card-token-storage-name": "cstStorage",
      "card-token-get-ledger-name-hash": "0x3ce199a1c5056a1082387f326c412e2770f23868c4064e317f4cc143d3b0fb24",
      "card-token-get-storage-name-hash": "0x3b490556deb6d6bcc6b6674ab40bed699c3086ffb6a43fd53f25257589cef605",
      "card-token-name": "Cardstack",
      "card-token-symbol": "CARD",
      "card-token-total-in-circulation": "2642628240961540000000000000",
      "card-token-cst-balance-limit": "647502000000000000000000",
      "card-token-buy-price": "37000",
      "card-token-circulation-cap": "2820000000000000000000000000",
      "card-token-foundation": "0x6D1627E046613482740ea35573a92E45558CB348",
      "card-token-total-supply": "6000000000000000000000000000",
      "card-token-tokens-available": "3357371759038460000000000000",
      "card-token-total-unvested-and-unreleased-tokens": "65776293000000000000000000",
      "card-token-vesting-mapping-size": "10",
      "card-token-total-custom-buyers-mapping": "561",
      "card-token-total-buyers-mapping": "4411",
      "card-token-total-transfer-whitelist-mapping": "4"
    },
    "meta": {
      "branch": "master",
      "source": "card-token",
      "blockheight": 6117030,
      "contractName": "card-token"
    }
  }
}

The data structure should look similar to the concepts introduced when we discussed the schema. Within the attributes property of the response you will find the output of all the read-only functions of the smart contract that take no parameters. Within the meta property of the response is the blockheight field, which provides context for all the attributes.

Let’s now look at a specific token holder’s balance. As with the unit test configuration in reference 5 line 17, the configuration for the CARD token smart contract used on /cardstack.com](cardstack.com) also includes this configuration in the eventContentTriggers:

Transfer: [ "card-token-balance-ofs" ]

This means that whenever the CARD token contract emits a Transfer Ethereum event, the Cardstack Hub will index both the sender’s and receiver’s card-token-balance-ofs documents.

From etherscan.io, we can choose an arbitrary token holder and supply this to the API. Let’s use the token holder address 0x274f3c32c90517975e29dfc209a23f315c1e5fc7. In this case we want the output of the balanceOf() function for the token holder’s address. To get this we can issue the request: GET https://hub.cardstack.com/api/card-token-balance-ofs/0x274f3c32c90517975e29dfc209a23f315c1e5fc7.

The response looks like this:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "0x274f3c32c90517975e29dfc209a23f315c1e5fc7",
    "type": "card-token-balance-ofs",
    "attributes": {
      "ethereum-address": "0x274F3c32C90517975e29Dfc209a23f315c1e5Fc7",
      "mapping-number-value": "2126636558964787521778757"
    },
    "relationships": {
      "card-token-contract": {
        "data": {
          "id": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
          "type": "card-tokens"
        }
      }
    },
    "meta": {
      "branch": "master",
      "source": "card-token",
      "blockheight": 6116632,
      "contractName": "card-token"
    }
  }
}

The attribute that holds the value for the output of the function balanceOf(0x274F3c32C90517975e29Dfc209a23f315c1e5Fc7) would be the mapping-number-value (line 7 of reference 9) as this function has a single return value that is a uint256 which is interpreted as a number by the Cardstack Hub.

Note that a current limitation is that you must use a lower-cased token address string for the ID of a child document of a smart contract when issuing the API request for the document. We use the ethereum-address attribute (line 6 of reference 9) to preserve the EIP-55 case sensitive form of the Ethereum address for the token holder.

The Cardstack Hub also supports much more sophisticated queries of documents. For example, if you wanted to get all the vested CARD token grants that that expire in 366 days you could issue a query that looks like this: GET https://hub.cardstack.com/api/card-token-vesting-schedules?filter[vesting-schedule-duration-sec]=31622400 which would return the response:

{
    "data": [
        {
            "id": "0x99e23c2ea424ac5be9c2468b98ba9bb973aa9720",
            "type": "card-token-vesting-schedules",
            "attributes": {
                "ethereum-address": "0x99e23C2Ea424ac5BE9C2468B98Ba9bB973aA9720",
                "vesting-schedule-start-date": "1529954716",
                "vesting-schedule-cliff-date": "1561490716",
                "vesting-schedule-duration-sec": "31622400",
                "vesting-schedule-fully-vested-amount": "149339724000000000000000000",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-amount": "2478454572486338797814207",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-available-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-released-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-revoke-date": "1530479524",
                "vesting-schedule-is-revocable": true
            },
            "relationships": {
                "card-token-contract": {
                    "data": {
                        "id": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
                        "type": "card-tokens"
                    }
                }
            },
            "meta": {
                "branch": "master",
                "source": "card-token",
                "blockheight": 6083135,
                "contractName": "card-token"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "0xda39489321a67511805eb1394146f54c407dbeb6",
            "type": "card-token-vesting-schedules",
            "attributes": {
                "ethereum-address": "0xdA39489321a67511805eB1394146f54c407dBeB6",
                "vesting-schedule-start-date": "1529959534",
                "vesting-schedule-cliff-date": "1561495534",
                "vesting-schedule-duration-sec": "31622400",
                "vesting-schedule-fully-vested-amount": "5625093000000000000000000",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-amount": "600359994093806921675774",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-available-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-released-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-revoke-date": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-is-revocable": true
            },
            "relationships": {
                "card-token-contract": {
                    "data": {
                        "id": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
                        "type": "card-tokens"
                    }
                }
            },
            "meta": {
                "branch": "master",
                "source": "card-token",
                "blockheight": 6083135,
                "contractName": "card-token"
            }
        },
        {
            "id": "0xebf94760821386c594317569001f7de89f1bad35",
            "type": "card-token-vesting-schedules",
            "attributes": {
                "ethereum-address": "0xEBF94760821386C594317569001F7DE89f1bAd35",
                "vesting-schedule-start-date": "1530197906",
                "vesting-schedule-cliff-date": "1561733906",
                "vesting-schedule-duration-sec": "31622400",
                "vesting-schedule-fully-vested-amount": "3735622000000000000000000",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-amount": "56859128649185387573365",
                "vesting-schedule-vested-available-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-released-amount": "0",
                "vesting-schedule-revoke-date": "1530679224",
                "vesting-schedule-is-revocable": true
            },
            "relationships": {
                "card-token-contract": {
                    "data": {
                        "id": "0xB07ec2c28834B889b1CE527Ca0F19364cD38935c",
                        "type": "card-tokens"
                    }
                }
            },
            "meta": {
                "branch": "master",
                "source": "card-token",
                "blockheight": 6083135,
                "contractName": "card-token"
            }
        }
    ],
    "meta": {
        "total": 3
    }
}

Learn more

Read more in The Cardstack Ethereum Plugin: Technical Overview and Running an Ethereum Cardstack Hub Application.