Creating Merkle Trees
In cryptography and computer science, a hash tree or Merkle tree is a tree in which every leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of a data block, and every non-leaf node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. Hash trees allow efficient and secure verification of the contents of large data structures. Hash trees are a generalization of hash lists and hash chains. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree]
ProvenDB uses Merkle trees to anchor large numbers of digital assets to a blockchain in a single transaction. By placing the root hash of a merkle tree on the blockchain, we can prove the integrity of any or all assets associated with the "leaf" hashes in the tree. See Proofs for more information.
Contents
Getting Started
import { merkle } from "provendb-sdk-node";
Before You Begin
The order of items being added to the tree is important in the reconstruction of a duplicate tree from the same data. That being said,
you need to ensure that you are adding items to the tree in a determinite way.
Building a MerkleTree
To construct a new merkle tree, use the Builder. The builder class provides dynamic building
of a merkle tree.
import { merkle } from "provendb-sdk-node";
let builder = merkle.newBuilder("sha-256");
Adding items can be done singularly (add()), or in bulk (addBatch()). Any data being added must
be of Buffer type.
// Adding items singularly with key/value
builder.add("key1", Buffer.from("m"));
builder.add("key2", Buffer.from("e"));
builder.add("key3", Buffer.from("r"));
builder.add("key4", Buffer.from("k"));
builder.add("key5", Buffer.from("l"));
builder.add("key6", Buffer.from("e"));
// Adding items in batches
builder.addBatch([
{ key: "key7", value: Buffer.from("t") },
{ key: "key8", value: Buffer.from("r") },
{ key: "key9", value: Buffer.from("e") },
{ key: "key10", value: Buffer.from("e") }
]);
For larger items, you can stream in chunks of data that will be digested upon completion.
Please Note - ensure you have read Before You Begin for asyncronous operations.
// Create the write stream
let stream = builder.writeStream();
// Read stream from file and add to write stream
fs.createReadStream("./testing/file_10000.txt")
.on("data", (d: Buffer) => {
stream.write(d);
})
.on("end", () => {
stream.close();
})
.on("error", (err) => console.log(err));
Once you have finished adding your items, you can build the Tree.
let tree = builder.build();
Exploring a MerkleTree
When you construct a tree using the Builder, the final result is a Tree.
For our example, let's take the following constructed tree:
let tree = merkle.newBuilder("sha-256").addBatch([
{ key: "key1", value: Buffer.from("m") },
{ key: "key2", value: Buffer.from("e") },
{ key: "key3", value: Buffer.from("r") },
{ key: "key4", value: Buffer.from("k") },
{ key: "key5", value: Buffer.from("l") },
{ key: "key6", value: Buffer.from("e") },
{ key: "key7", value: Buffer.from("t") },
{ key: "key8", value: Buffer.from("r") },
{ key: "key9", value: Buffer.from("e") },
{ key: "key10", value: Buffer.from("e") },
]);
We can retrieve the tree information as follows:
// Retrieves the algorithm used to construct the tree. Returns "sha-256"
tree.getAlgorithm();
// Retrieves the number of levels in the tree. Returns 5.
tree.nLevels(); // returns 5
// Retrieves the depth of the tree. Returns 4.
tree.nDepth(); // returns 4
// Retrieves the number of nodes in the tree. Returns 11.
tree.nNodes();
// Retrieves the number of leaves in the tree. Returns 10.
tree.nLeaves();
// Retrieves the root hash of the tree. Returns "da63e4bd82fc6e5fd7337e6bd9147d8cada6652d9049020edc6deb69b18cf69c"
tree.getRoot();
// Retrieve a single leaf. Returns
// { key: 'key1', value: '62c66a7a5dd70c3146618063c344e531e6d4b59e379808443ce962b3abd63c5a' }
tree.getLeaf("key1");
// Retrieves an array of all the leaves in the tree. Returns
// [
// { key: 'key1', value: '62c66a7a5dd70c3146618063c344e531e6d4b59e379808443ce962b3abd63c5a' },
// { key: 'key2', value: '3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea' },
// { key: 'key3', value: '454349e422f05297191ead13e21d3db520e5abef52055e4964b82fb213f593a1' },
// { key: 'key4', value: '8254c329a92850f6d539dd376f4816ee2764517da5e0235514af433164480d7a' },
// { key: 'key5', value: 'acac86c0e609ca906f632b0e2dacccb2b77d22b0621f20ebece1a4835b93f6f0' },
// { key: 'key6', value: '3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea' },
// { key: 'key7', value: 'e3b98a4da31a127d4bde6e43033f66ba274cab0eb7eb1c70ec41402bf6273dd8' },
// { key: 'key8', value: '454349e422f05297191ead13e21d3db520e5abef52055e4964b82fb213f593a1' },
// { key: 'key9', value: '3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea' },
// { key: 'key10', value: '3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea' }
// ]
tree.getLeaves();
// Retrieves a specific level in the tree. Returns
// [
// "cc2e1597613b45fddba2896c67f0d6c0f6ab2d8351057a06c943e03711c39ac9",
// "75de222d8adebd767f99a5fe35a5f3f58dbfa3d51ec28b54e9da4225ec8f170d"
// ]
tree.getLevel(1);
// Retrieve the merkle path from a specific leaf.
// Returns an array of left and right values all the way to the root:
// [
// {
// r: '3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea'
// },
// {
// r: '59607c4c6d90e990de7439330e27794eccd2e6d9e985b0aa3822032cafa7e8a8'
// },
// {
// r: '7dd7d88a2b96da7e3b886f5832c0ad97e789aae9394a81797b788c3f3e24c5f3'
// },
// {
// r: '75de222d8adebd767f99a5fe35a5f3f58dbfa3d51ec28b54e9da4225ec8f170d'
// }
// ]
tree.getPath("key1");
Adding Merkle Path to Proof
If you have submitted a proof for this tree via the anchor client, you can add a path from a leaf of this tree to the proof's submitted hash such that the anchored hash can still be calculated. You can do this by using
addPathToProof().
let proof = tree.addPathToProof(YOUR_ANCHOR_PROOF, "key1", "my_custom_label");
A proof with the path should look like the following:
{
"@context": "https://w3id.org/chainpoint/v3",
"type": "Chainpoint",
"hash": "62c66a7a5dd70c3146618063c344e531e6d4b59e379808443ce962b3abd63c5a",
"hash_id_node": "da023c5c-c895-11e9-a32f-2a2ae2dbcce4",
"hash_submitted_node_at": "2021-02-25T21:31:53Z",
"hash_id_core": "da023c5c-c895-11e9-a32f-2a2ae2dbcce4",
"hash_submitted_core_at": "2021-02-25T21:31:53Z",
"branches": [
{
"label": "my_custom_label",
"ops": [
{
"r": "3f79bb7b435b05321651daefd374cdc681dc06faa65e374e38337b88ca046dea"
},
{
"op": "sha-256"
},
{
"r": "59607c4c6d90e990de7439330e27794eccd2e6d9e985b0aa3822032cafa7e8a8"
},
{
"op": "sha-256"
},
{
"r": "7dd7d88a2b96da7e3b886f5832c0ad97e789aae9394a81797b788c3f3e24c5f3"
},
{
"op": "sha-256"
},
{
"r": "75de222d8adebd767f99a5fe35a5f3f58dbfa3d51ec28b54e9da4225ec8f170d"
},
{
"op": "sha-256"
}
],
"branches": [
{
"label": "pdb_eth_anchor_branch",
"ops": [
{
"anchors": [
{
"type": "cal",
"anchor_id": "724718a4eefb7d117f39b25b4131df741b15813ea83776bacd887d1dc7ea8b53",
"uris": [
"https://anchor.dev.proofable.io/verify/eth/724718a4eefb7d117f39b25b4131df741b15813ea83776bacd887d1dc7ea8b53"
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
File
A File is a representation of a merkle tree that this library understands. A File has the following fields:
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| algorithm | string | The algorithm used to construct the tree. |
| proofs | anchor.AnchorProof[] | An array of anchor proof objects associated with this tree. |
| data | string[][] | A two-dimensional array that contains the tree data. See Representation of data |
Representation of data
To avoid deep nesting, a two-dimensional array is used to represent the data in the merkle tree. All data is represented as a hash using the algorithm defined in the file (except for leaves which contain a colon separated key/value).
Export
You can export to a file in JSON format using exportSync() in your tree object.
// Syncronously export the tree
tree.exportSync("./merkle_tree.json");
Import
You can import a File using the importSync().
// Syncronously import a tree from file
let imported = merkle.importSync("./merkle_tree.json");
Updated over 3 years ago