Archive node and what does it allow

Questions
1

Hey,

I’m interested in gathering some data from the blockchain and would also require it from previous blocks. Reading the description of what infura archive node offers didn’t really bring me to any conclusion so I’m asking here. I would get the data by calling a read only -functions from certain contracts. With the archive node, would I be able to specify contract.function.call(blockNumber=x) and receive the answer as it was at that point in time. Dropping $250 without knowing for sure seems bit risky :smiley:

Thanks!

2

Hi :wave: @Loimija Welcome to the Infura community.
What kind of information would you like to read from the block. There are a couple of call methods that require archive node. You can read more about it here.

3

Hi @Lily, Thanks! Basically looking for some integers found from a contract and going back ~6 months to find out how the figure has changed. I am not exactly sure if archive node from infura allows that, as the documentation doesn’t specifically mention contracts. I would just like to confirm it beforehand because the costs :smiley:

Thanks!

4

Here are also some examples of looking at a particular contract address. https://github.com/ethereum/web3.js/issues/3083
https://medium.com/coinmonks/monitoring-an-ethereum-address-with-web3-js-970c0a3cf96d

The idea would be to filter out the results to the ones that match the contract address you are interested in.

getStorageAt might be a good option for you

These are the methods that would require archive node

  • getBalance
  • getCode
  • getTransactionCount
  • getStorageAt
  • call
5

Hey,

Bumping this again. For those interested the archive node indeed worked as expected and I was able to pull the historical data I needed.

However, as I managed to get that, I cancelled the subsriction so I wouldn’t forget it at later date. Now it seems like I do not have access to the historical data anymore after 4 days even though I bought an access for a month? Could someone get back to this and explain why is it so and does cancelling the subscription beforehand actually end it even though it was bought for a month?

6

Hi there. That is unfortunately how our billing currently works, cancellations take effect immediately, that is hopefully going to change soon so it cancels on the end of the paid month. Is you can help to DM me your email address of the account, we can give back the archive node for the month.

7

Hey, that would be great! Though I am still new to the community and can’t yet send DMs so if you could start the conversation there :sweat_smile:.

8

@Loimija - just sent you a DM!