previously, every time the VMState was created, it will also create
new stateDB, and this action will nullify the advantages of cached accounts.
the new changes will conserve the accounts cache if the executed blocks
are contiguous. if not the stateDB need to be reinited.
this changes also allow rpcCallEvm and rpcEstimateGas executed properly
using current stateDB instead of creating new one each time they are called.
* re-shuffled Clique functions
why:
Due to the port from the go-sources, the interface logic is not optimal
for nimbus. The main visible function is currently snapshot() and most
of the _procurement_ of this function result has been moved to a
sub-directory.
* run eip-225 Clique test against p2p/chain.persistBlocks()
why:
Previously, loading the test block chains was fugdged with the purpose
only to fill the database. As it is now clear how nimbus works on
Goerli, the same can be achieved with a more realistic scenario.
details:
Eventually these tests will be pre-cursor to the reply tests for the
Goerli chain supporting TDD approach with more simple cases.
* fix exception annotations for executor module
why:
needed for exception tracking
details:
main annoyance are vmState methods (in state.nim) which potentially
throw a base level Exception (a proc would only throws CatchableError)
* split p2p/chain into sub-modules and fix exception annotations
why:
make space for implementing PoA stuff
* provide over-loadable Clique PRNG
why:
There is a PRNG provided for generating reproducible number sequences.
The functions which employ the PRNG to generate time slots were ported
ported from the go-implementation. They are currently unused.
* implement trusted signer assembly in p2p/chain.persistBlocks()
details:
* PoA processing moved there at the end of a transaction. Currently,
there is no action (eg. transaction rollback) if this fails.
* The unit tests with staged blocks work ok. In particular, there should
be tests with to-be-rejected blocks.
* TODO: 1.Optimise throughput/cache handling; 2.Verify headers
* fix statement cast in pool.nim
* added table features to LRU cache
why:
Clique uses the LRU cache using a mixture of volatile online items
from the LRU cache and database checkpoints for hard synchronisation.
For performance, Clique needs more table like features.
details:
First, last, and query key added, as well as efficient random delete
added. Also key-item pair iterator added for debugging.
* re-factored LRU snapshot caching
why:
Caching was sub-optimal (aka. bonkers) in that it skipped over memory
caches in many cases and so mostly rebuild the snapshot from the
last on-disk checkpoint.
details;
The LRU snapshot toValue() handler has been moved into the module
clique_snapshot. This is for the fact that toValue() is not supposed
to see the whole LRU cache database. So there must be a higher layer
working with the the whole LRU cache and the on-disk checkpoint
database.
also:
some clean up
todo:
The code still assumes that the block headers are valid in itself. This
is particular important when an epoch header (aka re-sync header) is
processed as it must contain the PoA result of all previous headers.
So blocks need to be verified when they come in before used for PoA
processing.
* fix some snapshot cache fringe cases
why:
Must not index empty sequences in clique_snapshot module
* extract unused clique/mining support into separate file
why:
mining is currently unsupported by nimbus
* Replay first 51840 transactions from Goerli block chain
why:
Currently Goerli is loaded but the block headers are not verified.
Replaying allows real data PoA development.
details:
Simple stupid gzipped dump/undump layer for debugging based on
the zlib module (no nim-faststream support.)
This is a replay running against p2p/chain.persistBlocks() where
the data were captured from.
* prepare stubs for PoA engine
* split executor source into sup-modules
why:
make room for updates, clique integration should go into
executor/update_poastate.nim
* Simplify p2p/executor.processBlock() function prototype
why:
vmState argument always wraps basicChainDB
* split processBlock() into sub-functions
why:
isolate the part where it will support clique/poa
* provided additional processTransaction() function prototype without _fork_ argument
why:
with the exception of some tests, the _fork_ argument is always derived
from the other prototype argument _vmState_
details:
similar situation with makeReceipt()
* provide new processBlock() version explicitly supporting PoA
details:
The new processBlock() version supporting PoA is the general one also
supporting non-PoA networks, it needs an additional _Clique_ descriptor
function argument for PoA state (if any.)
The old processBlock() function without the _Clique_ descriptor argument
retorns an error on PoA networgs (e.g. Goerli.)
* re-implemented Clique descriptor as _ref object_
why:
gives more flexibility when moving around the descriptor object
details:
also cleaned up a bit the clique sources
* comments for clarifying handling of Clique/PoA state descriptor
jangko
Jordan Hrycaj