Block Events

Block events are responses emitted during the execution of transaction messages. Events make human-readble information more readily available for clients and indexers without directly affecting the state of the blockchain.

Difference between Events and TxMsgs

• Transaction Messages (TxMsg): A TxMsg is an action that a user sends to the blockchain network to perform some stateful operation, such as sending tokens from one account to another. These transactions are processed by the blockchain's state machine and can alter the state of the blockchain. They are broadcasted to the entire network, validated, and once agreed upon by the consensus protocol, they are added to a block.

• Events: On the other hand, events are a way for the application to signal that something significant has occurred as a result of processing a transaction. They are a response from the application back to the consensus engine. Events do not directly alter the state of the blockchain, but they provide a mechanism to notify clients about state changes. For example, an application could publish an event when a transfer of tokens occurs, with attributes detailing the sender, receiver, and amount.

Copy // Event allows application developers to attach additional information to // ResponseBeginBlock, ResponseEndBlock, ResponseCheckTx and ResponseDeliverTx. // Later, transactions may be queried using these events. type Event struct { Type string Attributes []EventAttribute // An event attribute is a key-value pair of strings }

Consistency of Events for Consensus

Events are not part of the consensus-critical data and are not required to be consistent across all nodes for consensus. Consensus, as in any BFT-based consensus protocol, depends on the state transitions that result from processing transactions, not on the events that are emitted as a result of those state transitions.

However, it is generally expected that the same transaction will generate the same events in all instances of the application.

How Events are Typically Used

Events are typically used to signal that a significant action has occurred as a result of a transaction. Events provide a means for applications to communicate meaningful information about transactions to end-users, external services, or other parts of the system in an efficient and flexible manner. Events are typically used for:

• Indexing and Searching: Events can be indexed by their type and attribute, allowing for efficient searching of historical events. This could be used, for example, to quickly find all transfer events involving a specific account.

• Real-time Updates: Clients can subscribe to certain types of events and receive real-time updates whenever such an event occurs. For instance, a wallet app could update a user's balance in real-time whenever a transfer event involving the user's account occurs.

• Audit Trails: Events can serve as an audit trail for applications, allowing developers or users to see what significant actions have occurred in the past.