Follow A User

Full, runnable src of Follow Another User can be downloaded as part of: tutorials/ruby (or download just this tutorial: devportal-master-tutorials-ruby-18_follow_another_user.zip).

This tutorial will take you through the process of following/muting/unfollowing/unmuting an author and checking the follow status of an author.

Also see:

• custom_json_operation

Sections

1. Follow
2. Check Follow
3. To Run - Running the example.

Follow

follow.rb

In the first example script, we can modify the initial configuration then run:

ruby follow.rb

Follows (and mutes) are expressed by custom_json with id=follow (mutes also use id=follow).

Example custom_json operation:

{
  "id": "follow",
  "required_auths": [],
  "required_posting_auths": ["social"],
  "json": "[\"follow\",{\"follower\":\"social\",\"following\":\"alice\",\"what\":[\"blog\"]}]"
}

To broadcast this operation, use the posting wif and matching account name in required_posting_auths. There are three variables required in the json field of the above operation:

1. follower - The specific account that will select the author to follow/unfollow.
2. following - The account/author that the account would like to follow.
3. what - The type of follow operation. This variable can have one of three values: blog to follow an author, ignore to mute, and an empty string to unfollow/unmute.

Check Follow

In the second example script:

ruby check_follow.rb

The API method we’re using here is condenser.get_following. We pass the name of the account we’re checking. If the account follows more than 1,000 other accounts, we execute condenser.get_following multiple times and pass the last followed account we know about to get the next 1,000 (passing the latest follows.last each time).

We also specify blog to tell the API method that we’re looking for followed, not muted (to locate muted accounts, use ignore instead of blog).

Final code:

require 'rubygems'
require 'bundler/setup'

Bundler.require

options = {
  url: 'https://testnet.openhive.network',
  wif: '5JrvPrQeBBvCRdjv29iDvkwn3EQYZ9jqfAHzrCyUvfbEbRkrYFC'
}
tx = Radiator::Transaction.new(options)
what = 'blog' # set this to empty string to unfollow

tx.operations << {
  type: :custom_json,
  id: 'follow',
  required_auths: [],
  required_posting_auths: ['social'],
  json: [:follow, {
    follower: 'social',
    following: 'alice',
    what: [what]
  }].to_json
}

response = tx.process(true)

if !!response.error
  puts response.error.message
else
  puts JSON.pretty_generate response
end

check_follow.rb

require 'rubygems'
require 'bundler/setup'

Bundler.require

api = Radiator::Api.new
account_name = 'social'
follow_name = 'alice'
what = 'blog' # use `blog` to find follows, `ignore` to find mutes
follows = []
following = false
limit = 10 # how many follows to read per api call (limit 1000)
count = 0

loop do
  follows += api.get_following(account_name, follows.last, what, limit) do |follows|
    follows.map(&:following)
  end
  
  follows = follows.uniq

  break unless count < follows.size
  count = follows.size
end

if follows.include? follow_name
  puts "#{account_name} is following #{follow_name}"
else
  puts "#{account_name} is *not* following #{follow_name}"
end

To Run

First, set up your workstation using the steps provided in Getting Started. Then you can create and execute the script (or clone from this repository):

You can launch a local testnet, with port 8090 mapped locally to the docker container:

docker run -d -p 8090:8090 inertia/tintoy:latest

For details on running a local testnet, see: Setting Up a Testnet

git clone https://gitlab.syncad.com/hive/devportal.git
cd devportal/tutorials/ruby/18_follow_another_user
bundle install
ruby follow.rb

Example Output

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "result": {
    "id": "025688e27999d3aa514f1f0b77c9f8d8dae31d72",
    "block_num": 26349355,
    "trx_num": 3,
    "expired": false
  },
  "id": 3
}

The response we get after broadcasting (if enabled) the transaction gives us the transaction id (025688e...), block number (22867626), and the transaction number of that block (3).