Learning-Bitcoin-from-the-Command-Line/12_3_Accessing_Bitcoind_with_Node.md

12.3: Accessing Bitcoind with Node

NOTE: This is a draft in progress, so that I can get some feedback from early reviewers. It is not yet ready for learning.

Accessing the bitcoind doesn't require curl. All you need is simple RPC functionality. That's what's provided by BCRPC by kallewoof of Digital Garage.

Setting Up Node.js

BCRPC is built on node.js. Thus, you'll first need to install the node.js and npm (node package manager) packages for your system.

If you're using a Ubuntu machine, you can run the following commands to get a new version of node.js (as opposed to the horribly out-of-date version in the Ubuntu package system).

curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_8.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
sudo apt-get install mocha -g

Setting Up BCRPC

You should next download BCRPC from the BCRPC Repository. Clone it or download it, as you prefer.

Once you've done that, you can finish setting it up:

$ unzip bcrpc-master.zip
$ cd bcrpc-master
$ npm install

Testing BCRPC