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File

Why?​

Venin can store generic-content files using Hedera's File Service. This can be anything: from ascii text to binary files. Anything you want to store and are willing to pay Hedera's storage fee, the network will host it.

info

LiveFile is the basis of LiveJson which is another type of file-content stored on Hedera, one dealing with structured JSON data.

Storing some text in a file​

An ApiSession with this via it's ApiSession.upload method like so:

Live Editor
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If you don't like the verbose new File(...) notation, you can also go for the short-hand equivalent of just providing the string itself to the ApiSession.upload method like so: ApiSession.upload("Venin is easy-peasy!"). These 2 means are equivalent. Of course, you can do the same for the other Uint8Array argument type.

If you need to tweak the underlying file-transaction options when storing the content, you can use the uploads meta-arguments. For instance, if you want to add a memo, just pass it a { _file: { memo: "true facts" } } when uploading, like so:

const { session } = await ApiSession.default();
const liveFile = await session.upload("Venin is easy-peasy-er!", {
  _file: { memo: "true facts" },
});

//...
note

The _file property is needed when uploading a file to distinguish it from uploading contract meta-arguments which also allow for fine-tweaking the ContractCreateTransaction call parameters through their own _contract property object.

Besides setting a memo you can pick and use any other fields that the FileCreateTransaction supports.

Retrieving a file from the network​

Although there is no ApiSession.getLiveJson equivalent method available to retrieve a LiveFile from Hedera (this will be supported once #58 gets implemented), we do provide a workaround:

  • having a FileId at hand, manually create a LiveFile via its constructor binding it to a working ApiSession
  • call LiveFile.getContents() to retrieve it's raw Uint8Array content

Deleting an online file​

To delete a deployed File, you have to have the wallet ApiSession owner be the owner of the LiveFile and then do a LiveFile.deleteEntity() call.

note

Once deleted, certain operations such as getLiveEntityInfo (to extract the content of the file, a chain operation) and, in general, all network-related actions, are no longer available.

Updating a file object​

Updating is easy, just call LiveFile.updateEntity(FileFeatures) where FileFeatures is an object type defined as:

export type FileFeatures = {
  keys?: KeyList | Key[];
  expirationTime?: Date;
  contents?: string | Uint8Array;
  fileMemo?: string;
};

If you're familiar with Hedera's SDK documentation, this are basically the available SDK options for updating a file on HCS.