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# Events

`Event`s are objects that contain information about the execution of the application. They are
mainly used by service providers like block explorers and wallet to track the execution of various
messages and index transactions. {synopsis}

## Pre-requisite Readings

- [Cosmos SDK Events](https://docs.cosmos.network/master/core/events.html) {prereq}
- [Ethereum's PubSub JSON-RPC API](https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/rpc/pubsub) {prereq}

## Subscribing to Events

### SDK and Tendermint Events

It is possible to subscribe to `Events` via Tendermint's [Websocket](https://tendermint.com/docs/app-dev/subscribing-to-events-via-websocket.html#subscribing-to-events-via-websocket).
This is done by calling the `subscribe` RPC method via Websocket:

```json
{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "subscribe",
    "id": "0",
    "params": {
        "query": "tm.event='eventCategory' AND eventType.eventAttribute='attributeValue'"
    }
}
```

The main `eventCategory` you can subscribe to are:

- `NewBlock`: Contains `events` triggered during `BeginBlock` and `EndBlock`.
- `Tx`: Contains `events` triggered during `DeliverTx` (i.e. transaction processing).
- `ValidatorSetUpdates`: Contains validator set updates for the block.

These events are triggered from the `state` package after a block is committed. You can get the full
list of `event` categories
[here](https://godoc.org/github.com/tendermint/tendermint/types#pkg-constants).

The `type` and `attribute` value of the `query` allow you to filter the specific `event` you are
looking for. For example, a `MsgEthereumTx` transaction triggers an `event` of type `ethermint` and
has `sender` and `recipient` as `attributes`. Subscribing to this `event` would be done like so:

```json
{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "subscribe",
    "id": "0",
    "params": {
        "query": "tm.event='Tx' AND ethereum.recipient='hexAddress'"
    }
}
```

where `hexAddress` is an Ethereum hex address (eg: `0x1122334455667788990011223344556677889900`).

### Ethereum JSON-RPC Events

Ethermint also supports the Ethereum [JSON-RPC](https://eth.wiki/json-rpc/API) filters calls to
subscribe to [state logs](https://eth.wiki/json-rpc/API#eth_newfilter),
[blocks](https://eth.wiki/json-rpc/API#eth_newblockfilter) or [pending
transactions](https://eth.wiki/json-rpc/API#eth_newpendingtransactionfilter) changes.

Under the hood, it uses the Tendermint RPC client's event system to process subscriptions that are
then formatted to Ethereum-compatible events.

```bash
curl -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_newBlockFilter","params":[],"id":1}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8545

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":"0x3503de5f0c766c68f78a03a3b05036a5"}
```

Then you can check if the state chages with the [`eth_getFilterChanges`](https://eth.wiki/json-rpc/API#eth_getfilterchanges) call:

```bash
curl -X POST --data '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getFilterChanges","params":["0x3503de5f0c766c68f78a03a3b05036a5"],"id":1}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://localhost:8545

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":["0x7d44dceff05d5963b5bc81df7e9f79b27e777b0a03a6feca09f3447b99c6fa71","0x3961e4050c27ce0145d375255b3cb829a5b4e795ac475c05a219b3733723d376","0xd7a497f95167d63e6feca70f344d9f6e843d097b62729b8f43bdcd5febf142ab","0x55d80a4ba6ef54f2a8c0b99589d017b810ed13a1fda6a111e1b87725bc8ceb0e","0x9e8b92c17280dd05f2562af6eea3285181c562ebf41fc758527d4c30364bcbc4","0x7353a4b9d6b35c9eafeccaf9722dd293c46ae2ffd4093b2367165c3620a0c7c9","0x026d91bda61c8789c59632c349b38fd7e7557e6b598b94879654a644cfa75f30","0x73e3245d4ddc3bba48fa67633f9993c6e11728a36401fa1206437f8be94ef1d3"]}
```

## Websocket Connection

### Tendermint Websocket

To start a connection with the Tendermint websocket you need to define the address with the `--node`
flag when initializing the REST server (default `tcp://localhost:26657`):

```bash
ethermintcli rest-server --laddr "tcp://localhost:8545" --node "tcp://localhost:8080" --unlock-key <my_key> --chain-id <chain_id>
```

Then, start a websocket subscription with [ws](https://github.com/hashrocket/ws)

```bash
# connect to tendermint websocet at port 8080 as defined above
ws ws://localhost:8080/websocket

# subscribe to new Tendermint block headers
> { "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "subscribe", "params": ["tm.event='NewBlockHeader'"], "id": 1 }
```

### Ethereum Websocket

Since Ethermint runs uses Tendermint Core as it's consensus Engine and it's built with the Cosmos
SDK framework, it inherits the event format from them. However, in order to support the native Web3
compatibility for websockets of the [Ethereum's
PubSubAPI](https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/rpc/pubsub), Ethermint needs to cast the Tendermint
responses retreived into the Ethereum types.

You can start a connection with the Ethereum websocket using the `--wsport` flag when initializing
the REST server (default `8546`):

```bash
ethermintcli rest-server --laddr "tcp://localhost:8545" --wsport 8546 --unlock-key <my_key> --chain-id <chain_id>
```

Then, start a websocket subscription with [ws](https://github.com/hashrocket/ws)

```bash
# connect to tendermint websocet at port 8546 as defined above
ws ws://localhost:8546/

# subscribe to new Ethereum-formatted block Headers
> {"id": 1, "method": "eth_subscribe", "params": ["newHeads", {}]}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","result":"0x44e010cb2c3161e9c02207ff172166ef","id":1}
```

## Next {hide}

Learn about Ethermint [accounts](./../basic/accounts.md) {hide}