Getting Started

A Python implementation of the multiformat protocols:

Varint implements the unsigned varint spec

Multicodec implements the multicodec spec

Multibase implements the multibase spec

Multihash implements the multihash spec

CID implements the Content IDentifier spec

Multiaddr implements the multiaddr spec

You can install the latest release from PyPI as follows:

$ pip install --upgrade multiformats

You can import multiformat protocols directly from top level:

>>> from multiformats import *

The above will import the following names:

varint, multicodec, multibase, multihash, multiaddr, CID

The first five are modules implementing the homonymous specifications, while CID is a class for Content IDentifiers.

The following are mandatory dependencies for this module:

typing-extensions, for backward compatibility of static typing.
typing-validation, for dynamic typechecking.
bases, for implementation of base encodings used by Multibase.
multiformats-config, handling pre-loading configuration of multicodec/multibase tables.

The following are optional dependencies for this module:

blake3, for the blake3 hash function.
pyskein, for the skein hash functions.
mmh3, for the murmur3 hash functions.
pycryptodomex, for the ripemd-160 hash function, the kangarootwelve hash function, the keccak hash functions and the sha2-512-224/sha2-512-256 hash functions.

You can install the latest release together with all optional dependencies as follows:

$ pip install --upgrade multiformats[full]

If you’d like to only load a selection of multicodecs and/or multibases, you can do so by calling multiformats_config.enable() before importing the multiformats library, passing the desired multicodec names (as str) orcodes (as int) and the desired multibase names (as str) or codes (as str of length 1) to the codecs and bases keyword arguments, respectively:

import multiformats_config
multiformats_config.enable(codecs=["sha1", 0x29], bases=["base64url", "9"])
from multiformats import *

If codecs is not set (or set to None), all multicodecs are loaded. If bases is not set (or set to None), all multibases are loaded. Using multiformats_config.enable(codecs=[], bases=[]) results in a minimal set of (mandatory) multicodecs and multibases to be loaded:

_minimal_multicodecs = frozenset([
    0x00, # 'identity'
    0x01, # 'cidv1'
    0x02, # 'cidv2'
    0x12, # 'sha2-256'
    0x14, # 'sha3-512'
    0x16, # 'sha3-256'
    0x70, # 'dag-pb'
    0x71, # 'dag-cbor'
    0x72, # 'libp2p-key'
])

_minimal_multibases = frozenset([
    "identity",
    "base16",
    "base32",
    "base58btc",
])

Calling multiformats_config.enable after the multiformats library has been imported will fail raising multiformats_config.LockedConfigError. The multiformats-config repository also stores the tables specifying all multicodecs and multibases known to this package.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/hashberg-io/multiformats