# Gavin Andresen
# 2010-09-27 17:57:53
# https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=724.msg14266#msg14266

I've been working on a "monitoraddress" / "monitorblocks" patch, so bitcoind will POST transaction/block information to an arbitrary URL. @p{par}

And it seems to me "getblock" should be split into "getblockbycount", "getblockbyhash" and "gettransaction".  I also have some suggestions for making the naming more consistent: @p{par}

I'd suggest getblockby* return: @p{brk}

Code:
{ @p{brk}
    "hash" : "00000000002d1a4380793affbc610885aa2e0b224eeedd64ffe108044ec7d434", @p{brk}
    "blockcount" : 71995, @p{brk}
    "version" : 1, @p{brk}
    "merkleroot" : "9d436c694968454ea0d17f4aece3b829930027c3cb918e5107a1605aa2eeae33", @p{brk}
    "time" : 1280823515, @p{brk}
    "nonce" : 2918845955, @p{brk}
    "tx" : [  "f85e77e4379694c8d2c1232d6fddfc7792073fb8484bdac37a9ba5ed1d245c57", etc ] @p{brk}
} @p{brk}

 @p{brk}
Reasoning: @p{brk}
  blockcount instead of 'height' or 'depth' because getinfo returns "blockcount" @p{brk}
  getblockbyhash might return a block not on the "best" chain; return blockcount=-1 in that case? @p{brk}
  version instead of 'ver' because abbrvs shd b avoided (thy cn b hrd to rd/rmbr) @p{brk}
  only return transaction hashes; if you need more transaction details, call gettransaction. @p{brk}
  No n_tx (or n_anything) because it is implicit in length of returned array @p{par}

(stuff I'm not sure about:  what is 'bits' in the implemented getblock?  Is that difficulty?  Does anybody really need all the detailed merkle tree info?) @p{par}

I'd suggest gettransaction return: @p{brk}

Code:
{ @p{brk}
  "txid" : ...transaction id passed in, @p{brk}
  "version" : 1, @p{brk}
  "time" : ...transaction time..., @p{brk}
  "confirmations" : n, @p{brk}
  "block" : "block hash",   #  (if confirmations @s{gt} 0) @p{brk}
  "from" : [ [ "txid", n ], ... ], # Empty if coin generation transaction @p{brk}
  "to" : [ [ "address", amount ], ... ], @p{brk}
} @p{brk}

 @p{brk}
Reasoning: @p{brk}
  Returning the CScript string seems like it is both too much detail AND not very useful (I want the bitcoin addresses, NOT OP_DUP 0xblahblahblah ...) @p{brk}
  "from" is just a list of pointers to previous transaction "to"s @p{brk}
  confirmations is duplicate info (you could getblockbyhash and then look at its blockcount), but is so useful I think it belongs here. @p{brk}