js-ipfs 0.34.0 released

Alan Shaw
js-ipfs 0.34.0 released
#js-ipfs
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Speed and flexibility, new IPFS for a new year!

# πŸ”¦ Highlights

# 🏎 Reading Protobuf DAG nodes is super fast

Reading Protobuf DAG nodes just got a serious speed boost as well as a memory reduction. Previously Protobuf DAG nodes (dag-pb nodes for short) carried a multihash property (a CIDv0 (opens new window)) with them. This used up loads of CPU time calculating the hash for a given node as it was retrieved from storage and with the advent of CIDv1 (opens new window) there was no guarantee the hashing algorithm and length were correct.

So, we removed it! πŸ¦– ...but that had the unfortunate consequence of making the object API a whole lot less useful when writing data - the DAG nodes you got back were basically the data you put in. Hence the object API was refactored to return CIDs instead of DAG nodes for write operations...and we all lived happily ever after.

# 🚀 Adding content is blazingly fast

We found a bottleneck that meant the bigger the file you added to IPFS, the longer it would take - oh no 😭! Good news folks, we've seen the speed of adding large files increase by 50% or more in some cases! πŸ’₯

Read all about it in the pull request notes (opens new window).

# πŸŽ„ HAMT support added to MFS

We're putting the whole of npm on IPFS! These days npm is like 5.3 terabytes of data and it's all going in MFS (opens new window). This is super rad, but we needed a good sharding strategy because 5TB is a lorra lorra files.

If you're curious about npm on IPFS, check out the project here (opens new window).

# πŸ“£ IPNS over pubsub and DHT

Get informed of IPNS (opens new window) record updates and read and publish your IPNS records to the DHT. It's all there and it's all awesome. For those of you new to IPNS, let me give you the lowdown - IPNS puts the mutable in immutable 🀣 It's an age old problem, content addressing is rad and all that, but if I change something the hash changes - πŸ‘Ž boo...but wait, IPNS solves this, you get a permenant address for changeable content - hooray \o/.

IPNS over pubsub gets the word out quicker to peers that are interested when an IPNS record changes. IPNS over DHT allows peers to find and resolve your IPNS address to some content in the first place! In the next JS IPFS release (0.35) the DHT will be enabled by default and it's going to be epic.

# ⚾️ CID handling improvements

Smoosh your CIDs into whatever version you like - you can now add data under a version 0 CID and get it back using a version 1 CID and vice versa. Now that you have this freedom you can encode them with whatever multibase encoding you like. Version 0 CIDs are all base58btc but if you convert to a version 1 CID you can encode it with base2, base32, base64url or whatever:

# base2
010111000000010010001000000100011011010100010010000001010010111001110001011010111100010100000111000011101010101010101101111100000001011101110001011110100001000100111010101101010111111001000111110001001010000101100010110000001000011110101110100100010101110110100010110100110000001110
# base32
bafybeicg2rebjoofv4kbyovkw7af3rpiitvnl6i7ckcywaq6xjcxnc2mby
# base58btc
QmT78zSuBmuS4z925WZfrqQ1qHaJ56DQaTfyMUF7F8ff5o
# base64url
uAXASIEbUSBS5xa8UHDqqt8BdxehE6tX5HxKFiwIeukV2i0wO

This is all work to smooth out the eventual transition to base32 CIDv1 by default - a move to allow CIDs to be used as valid URL origins. Have a read of this for more (opens new window).

To help you craft your artisanal CIDs we've introduced a --cid-base option to a bunch of CLI commands (and ?cid-base option to a bunch of HTTP API endpoints). Check it out:

jsipfs add file.txt --cid-base=base32
added bafybeibns4lrebrxaymvyshgmki5biwh6cd53idxfpen6ysomzrywtsm44 file.txt

# πŸ’ͺ Deps got upgrades!

We got you covered with WebUI 2.3 (opens new window) (quic support, responsive navbar, and a language selector), libp2p 0.24 (opens new window) and many other upgrades giving you a faster and smaller JS IPFS.

# πŸ— API Changes

  • Object API methods that write DAG nodes now return a CID (opens new window) instead of a DAG node. Affected methods:
    • ipfs.object.new
    • ipfs.object.patch.addLink
    • ipfs.object.patch.appendData
    • ipfs.object.patch.rmLink
    • ipfs.object.patch.setData
    • ipfs.object.put
    • More info (opens new window)
  • DAGNode instances, which are part of the IPLD dag-pb format have been refactored. These instances no longer have multihash, cid or serialized properties. This effects the following API methods that return these types of objects:
  • Files API methods add*, cat*, get* have moved from files to the root namespace. Specifically, the following changes have been made:
    • ipfs.files.add => ipfs.add
    • ipfs.files.addPullStream => ipfs.addPullStream
    • ipfs.files.addReadableStream => ipfs.addReadableStream
    • ipfs.files.cat => ipfs.cat
    • ipfs.files.catPullStream => ipfs.catPullStream
    • ipfs.files.catReadableStream => ipfs.catReadableStream
    • ipfs.files.get => ipfs.get
    • ipfs.files.getPullStream => ipfs.getPullStream
    • ipfs.files.getReadableStream => ipfs.getReadableStream
  • New core files API methods added:
  • DHT API methods renamed and return types changed
  • A new option is available in the CLI, HTTP API and core that will allow the multibase encoding to be specified for any CIDs that are returned as strings.
    • A --cid-base option has been added to the following CLI commands:
      • jsipfs bitswap stat
      • jsipfs bitswap unwant
      • jsipfs bitswap wantlist
      • jsipfs block put
      • jsipfs block stat
      • jsipfs add
      • jsipfs ls
      • jsipfs object get
      • jsipfs object links
      • jsipfs object new
      • jsipfs object patch add-link
      • jsipfs object patch append-data
      • jsipfs object patch rm-link
      • jsipfs object patch set-data
      • jsipfs object put
      • jsipfs object stat
      • jsipfs pin add
      • jsipfs pin ls
      • jsipfs pin rm
      • jsipfs resolve
      • Note: these two MFS commands already implement the --cid-base option:
      • jsipfs files ls
      • jsipfs files stat
    • A ?cid-base= query option has been added to the following HTTP endpoints:
      • /api/v0/bitswap/wantlist
      • /api/v0/bitswap/stat
      • /api/v0/bitswap/unwant
      • /api/v0/block/put
      • /api/v0/block/stat
      • /api/v0/add
      • /api/v0/ls
      • /api/v0/object/new
      • /api/v0/object/get
      • /api/v0/object/put
      • /api/v0/object/stat
      • /api/v0/object/links
      • /api/v0/object/patch/append-data
      • /api/v0/object/patch/set-data
      • /api/v0/object/patch/add-link
      • /api/v0/object/patch/rm-link
      • /api/v0/pin/ls
      • /api/v0/pin/add
      • /api/v0/pin/rm
      • /api/v0/resolve
    • A cidBase option has been added to the following core functions:
      • resolve
    • NOTE Using the CID base option in bitswap, dag and object APIs WILL NOT auto upgrade your CID to v1 if it is a v0 CID and WILL NOT apply the encoding you specified. This is because these APIs return IPLD objects with links and changing the version of the links would result in a different hash for the node if you were to re-add it. Also, the CID you used to retrieve the node wouldn't actually refer to the node you got back any longer. Read this (opens new window) for further context.
  • All API methods that returned big.js (opens new window) instances now return bignumber.js (opens new window) instances.

# ❀️ Huge thank you to everyone that made this release possible

By alphabetical order, here are all the humans that contributed to the release:

# πŸ™ŒπŸ½ Want to contribute?

Would you like to contribute to the IPFS project and don't know how? Well, there are a few places you can get started:

  • Check the issues with the help wanted label at the Ready column in our waffle board - https://waffle.io/ipfs/js-ipfs?label=help%20wanted
  • Join an IPFS All Hands, introduce yourself and let us know where you would like to contribute - https://github.com/ipfs/team-mgmt/#weekly-ipfs-all-hands
  • Hack with IPFS and show us what you made! The All Hands call is also the perfect venue for demos, join in and show us what you built
  • Join the discussion at http://discuss.ipfs.tech/ and help users finding their answers.
  • Join the βš‘οΈβ’Ώβ“ˆ Core Dev Team Weekly Sync πŸ™ŒπŸ½ (opens new window) and be part of the Sprint action!

# ⁉️ Do you have questions?

The best place to ask your questions about IPFS, how it works and what you can do with it is at discuss.ipfs.tech (opens new window). We are also available at the #ipfs channel on Freenode.