Module Prefix in src/lib_crypto/base58.ml has lines such as let ed25519_public_key_hash = "\006\161\159" (* tz1(36) *).
How does one get "\006\161\159" from tz1(36)?
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2 Answers
Base58 encodes characters by appending a prefix, treating the bytes as a big endian number and writing that big endian number in base 58.
Therefore, specific prefixes can pin down the most significant "digits" in Base58.
The python script b58_prefix.py in the scripts directory of the Tezos repo can help find those prefixes. Note that to run it you will need this version of the python lib pybitcointools
pip install git+https://github.com/vbuterin/pybitcointools.git@aeb0a2bbb8bbfe421432d776c649650eaeb882a5#egg=master
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How do you convert the byte array
"\006\161\159"into a magicbyte value that can be passed to the bitcoin.bin_to_b58check function? I discovered that you can use struct.unpack with the hex values of the byte array like this (generates p2sig(98))P256_SIGNATURE = struct.unpack('>L', b'\x36\xF0\x2C\x34')[0], but"\006\161\159"is only 3 bytes so it can't be packed into a 4-byte big-endian integer. Commented Feb 16, 2019 at 22:02 -
see also the pending MR gitlab.com/tezos/tezos/-/merge_requests/1528 that documents this script further.– arvidjCommented Apr 8, 2020 at 8:57
Base58 prefixes will always produce a prefixed output for a set length of output. So the input address is 20 bytes + the 3 byte prefix gives a 36 char long address with tz1.
You calculate these prefixes by guess and check.
answered Feb 1, 2019 at 12:53
