Understanding the Read Message Node

In this quick tutorial, we will cover “Understanding the Read Message Node”. The Catenis platform makes it super simple to retrieve the message that was either sent or logged. The Read Message node retrieves the message that was either inserted into a Bitcoin transaction, or that had its hash inserted into a Bitcoin transaction and its contents placed on IPFS. If the content was encrypted, it will also automatically decrypt the content before retrieving the content.

In this video we will cover:

• Overview of what the Read Message Node does
• A review of all of the possible configuration values of the Read Message Node
• Importing a working Read Message Node flow
• Running the flow to see its results

Prerequisite

• A Free Catenis Development account or Production account
• Node-RED installed on either a local or cloud environment
• Catenis Flow Pallet installed on Node-RED
• A Catenis Virtual Device configured on Node-RED
• Basic understanding of how the use Node-RED
• Basic understanding of Bitcoin Blockchain concepts
• Basic understanding of IPFS

Thank you for watching Understanding the Read Message Node in the Catenis Flow tutorial series. Watch the next video, Working with the Read Message Node, to further expand your knowledge.

Links from this video for easy access:

• Working With the Retrieve Message Container Node: https://blockchainofthings.com/tutorials/work-with-retrieve-message-container-node
• Read Message Node Documentation on our website: https://blockchainofthings.com/read-message-node/
• Working with the Read Message Node: https://blockchainofthings.com/tutorials/work-with-read-message-nod

To sign up for your free account, head to our website www.blockchainofthings.com.

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[Music]

Hi, this is Clara for Blockchain of Things.

This tutorial will teach you everything you need to know about the Read Message Node. The Read Message Node retrieves a message that was either inserted into a bitcoin transaction,

or that had its hash inserted into a bitcoin transaction and its contents placed on IPFS.

This node takes the ID of the message you wish to retrieve as input and returns a JSON

object containing the message’s content.

Let’s go through each properties panel field
to review what each property is for.

Node-RED specific fields, include
the name field and connection field.

Add a descriptive name of your choice to the name field that will help differentiate this node from

others of the same type on the Node-RED workspace.

Set a previously configured Catenis Virtual Device
in the connection field

or configure a new Virtual Device.

If you need to configure a new Virtual Device, check out the video
at this link to learn how.

Catenis Flow will automatically encode the content you send into one of three types you designate

UTF-8,

Base64,

or Hexadecimal.

UTF-8 is typically associated with textual content and is the default encoding type that Catenis uses.

Base64 is typically used when one wants to handle
data stored in the form of a document.

Hexadecimal is typically used when one wants
to express binary numbers.

In the data chunk size field, you can enter the size

and bytes of the largest message data chunk that should be returned.

Indicate whether processing should be done asynchronously in the async field.

Now, let’s take a look at the example flow found at this link:

Copy the example flow.

Click the Node-RED hamburger menu

and click import to display the import flow dialog box.

Paste the flow into the import box and click the import button.

This flow is a working example implementing
the Read Message Node.

Note, that after importing the example flow, you will need to set the

Catenis Flow Nodes to your own previously configured Virtual Device.

You will also need to set the message ID payload in the Inject Node

to the ID of a message you have previously logged.

Don’t have a message ID?

Complete the tutorial at this link to generate your own message ID.

You can pause this tutorial now to explore this flow on your own.

And in our next tutorial, you’ll learn how to
create this flow from scratch.

Awesome!

Now, you should understand Read Message Nodes.

In our next tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the Read Message Node in a flow of your own.

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