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I was going through the Create Your Own CryptoCurrency documentation and got stuck at the proofOfWork section. In this, they try to do a check i.e.

require(n >= bytes(difficulty)) //Check if its under difficulty

I wanted to understand, what kind of comparison is being done here?

  1. Is is byte-to-byte comparison?
  2. Is there some conversion happening before the check?
  3. Or, its just a length check (which I think isn't the case, but just to be sure, I added it here).

If someone can point me to the right resource on the same.

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    The current code in the linked page reads require(n >= bytes8(difficulty)). bytes8 is a fixed-length array of bytes that defines >=, among other comparators. I assume it's doing a byte-to-byte comparison. The code you shared shouldn't compile.
    – user19510
    Dec 5, 2017 at 22:12
  • Hmm. If you can provide any reference for this assumption. Thanks
    – farhankhwaja
    Dec 5, 2017 at 23:34
  • Sorry, but I didn't see the implementation details anywhere. My assumption is just based on the fact that otherwise such a comparison wouldn't make sense. Compiling the code and looking at the assembly might be a good way to verify if we're unable to find documentation.
    – user19510
    Dec 5, 2017 at 23:59
  • Yeah. Even I didn’t find any docs on this. Oh ok. Will try doing that.
    – farhankhwaja
    Dec 6, 2017 at 0:12

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if n is greater then or equals to the number of bytes in the difficulty then it will be TRUE statement.

Bytes function in python explained:

Return a new “bytes” object, which is an immutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. bytes

ex:

var n = 16
var difficulty = 0x10

var bytes = bytes(difficulty) // 16
n >= bytes is true
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  • I'm not sure what you're basing this answer on. Could you provide some evidence for your claim?
    – user19510
    Dec 5, 2017 at 22:13

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