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Browsing Gno Source Code

Overview​

In this tutorial, you will learn how to browse deployed Gno Realms and Packages. Additionally, you will understand how the Render method is utilized to achieve Realm state visibility.

Prerequisites​

  • gnoweb set up. Reference the Local Setup guide for steps

1. Start the local chain​

In order for gnoweb to fetch realm and package source code, it needs to connect a running Gno node. For a better overview on running a local node, please reference the Starting a Local Chain guide.

In this guide, we will start a local node with the default configuration. Navigate to the gno.land sub-folder and run:

gnoland start

2. Start gnoweb​

Now that the chain is running, we can start the gnoweb tool:

gnoweb
Different JSON-RPC URL

In case you are running a node on a different JSON-RPC URL from the default one (http://127.0.0.1:26657), you can specify the remote URL with the gnoweb flag named --remote

We should be able to access the website locally on http://127.0.0.1:8888/.

gnoweb screen

3. Browse Package source code​

Packages in Gno.land usually have names resembling gno.land/p/<name>. Since packages do not contain state, we can only view their source code on-chain. To learn more about Packages, please check out the Packages explanation document.

Using gnoweb, we can browse the source code in our browser. For example, the avl package is deployed at gno.land/p/demo/avl.

To access the source code of the avl package, we can append the /p/demo/avl to our browser URL (from the homepage).

The final URL for the avl package source could be viewable at http://127.0.0.1:8888/p/demo/avl, if we followed default setup params, as we did in this guide.

gnoweb avl

From here, we can open any source code file of the deployed on-chain package and inspect its API.

4. Browse Realm source code​

In contrast to Packages, Realms in Gno.land usually have names resembling gno.land/r/<name>.

Realms do contain state, and in addition to being able to view their source code on-chain, users can also view their internal state representation in the form of the Render() output. To learn more about Realms, please check out the Realms explanation document.

Using gnoweb, we can browse the Realm Render() method output and source code in our browser. For example, the boards Realm is deployed at gno.land/r/demo/boards.

To view the internal Realm state of the boards package, we can append the /r/demo/boards to our browser URL (from the homepage).

The final URL for the boards Realm internal state could be viewable at http://127.0.0.1:8888/r/demo/boards, if we followed default setup params, as we did in this guide.

gnoweb boards

Render() is not required

Internal Realm state does not have to be exposed through the Render() method of the realm, as it is not a requirement for deploying a Realm.

Additionally, to view the source code for the realm, we simply need to append the / to the full realm path:

http://127.0.0.1:8888/r/demo/boards/

gnoweb boards source