How To Submit A Transaction

Overview

This how-to guide provides instructions on how to submit, or push, a transaction using the cleos CLI tool.

Before you begin

Install the currently supported version of cleos
Understand the following:
- What a transaction is.
- How to generate a valid transaction JSON.
  - Consult cleos push transaction reference, and pay attention to option -d and -j.
  - Consult push transaction endpoint for chain api plug-in, and pay attention to the payload definition.

Command Reference

See the following reference guides for command line usage and related options for the cleos command:

The cleos push transaction reference.

Procedure

The following steps show how to:

1. Create the transaction as JSON snippet

You can create the JSON snippet defining the transaction in two ways:

Create a JSON snippet which contains a valid transaction and uses hex format for data field.

{
  "expiration": "2019-08-01T07:15:49",
  "ref_block_num": 34881,
  "ref_block_prefix": 2972818865,
  "max_net_usage_words": 0,
  "max_cpu_usage_ms": 0,
  "delay_sec": 0,
  "context_free_actions": [],
  "actions": [{
      "account": "eosio.token",
      "name": "transfer",
      "authorization": [{
          "actor": "han",
          "permission": "active"
        }
      ],
      "data": "000000000000a6690000000000ea305501000000000000000453595300000000016d"
    }
  ],
  "transaction_extensions": [],
  "context_free_data": []
}

Alternatively, you can also create a JSON snippet that uses clear text JSON for data field.

Be aware that if a clear text data field is used, cleos needs to fetch the smart contract's ABI using nodeos API. This operation has an overall performance overhead for both cleos and nodeos. On the other hand if hex data is used in the data field then the ABI fetching is not executed and thus the total time to send and execute the transaction is faster.

{
  "expiration": "2019-08-01T07:15:49",
  "ref_block_num": 34881,
  "ref_block_prefix": 2972818865,
  "max_net_usage_words": 0,
  "max_cpu_usage_ms": 0,
  "delay_sec": 0,
  "context_free_actions": [],
  "actions": [{
      "account": "eosio.token",
      "name": "transfer",
      "authorization": [{
          "actor": "han",
          "permission": "active"
        }
      ],
      "data": {
        "from": "han",
        "to": "eosio",
        "quantity": "0.0001 SYS",
        "memo": "m"
      }
    }
  ],
  "transaction_extensions": [],
  "context_free_data": []
}

2. Send the transaction

You can send the transaction you created as JSON snippet in two ways:

You can send the transaction stored in TRX_FILE.json file:

cleos push transaction TRX_FILE.json

Alternatively, you can send the transaction using the JSON content directly:

cleos push transaction '{"expiration": "2019-08-01T07:15:49", "ref_block_num": 34881,"ref_block_prefix": 2972818865,"max_net_usage_words": 0,"max_cpu_usage_ms": 0,"delay_sec": 0,"context_free_actions": [],"actions": [{"account": "eosio.token","name": "transfer","authorization": [{"actor": "han","permission": "active"}],"data": {"from": "han","to": "eosio","quantity": "0.0001 SYS","memo": "m"}}],"transaction_extensions": [],"context_free_data": []}'

Summary

In conclusion, the above instructions show how to submit, or push, a transaction using the cleos CLI tool.