Avalanche - eth_getBalance - Converting the balance from hexadecimal to decimal

Question

Context

Using the Avalanche Explorer, I selected a random address that has some AVAX in it:

https://cchain.explorer.avax.network/address/0xB9F79Fc4B7A2F5fB33493aB5D018dB811c9c2f02/transactions

At the time that I looked that address up, the AVAX balance is around 39,166:

Code

I'm using the following REST call to retreive the balance of that address:

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.avax.network/ext/bc/C/rpc' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "method": "eth_getBalance",
    "params": [
        "0xB9F79Fc4B7A2F5fB33493aB5D018dB811c9c2f02",
        "latest"
    ],
    "id": 1
}'

At the time that I made the call, it returned the following:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":"0x8868dc30a5d07460032"}

Question

As you can see, the balance comes back as:

0x8868dc30a5d07460032

What's the recommended way to convert that to the decimal balance?

Feel free to point me to the right place in the developer documentation if this is discussed there.

Thanks!

Are you going to fetch those request within a web app? If so, you can use ethers library that will decode all of the function result data for you (not just the numbers) https://docs.ethers.io/v5/ — Peter Slaný, Sep 16 '21 at 10:38
@PeterSlaný, for now just a command line tool but eventually/potentially, yes from a web app. Thanks for that reference! — dharmatech, Sep 16 '21 at 10:40

Doğukan Akkaya · Answer 1 · 2022-04-23T19:11:28.733

If you are working with Javascript here is the snippet:

async getBalance(address) {
    const response = await fetch('https://api.avax.network/ext/bc/C/rpc', {
        method: 'POST',
        headers: {
            'Content-Type': 'application/json'
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({
            jsonrpc: '2.0',
            id: 1,
            method: 'eth_getBalance',
            params: [
                address,
                'latest'
            ]
        })
    });

    const data = await response.json();

    return parseInt(data.result, 16) / Math.pow(10, 18);
}

You can make the same calculation with other languages or whatever you use.

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 16 '21 at 12:38

It looks like you simply divide by 18.

Here's some PowerShell function Get-AVAX-Balance that will retrieve a balance given an address:

function Convert-Hexadecimal-to-Decimal ([string]$hexadecimal)
{
    $str = '0{0}' -f ($hexadecimal -replace '^0x')

    [decimal]([bigint]::Parse($str, [System.Globalization.NumberStyles]::AllowHexSpecifier))
}

function Get-AVAX-Balance ($address)
{
    $result = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri 'https://api.avax.network/ext/bc/C/rpc' -Method Post -ContentType 'application/json' -Body (ConvertTo-Json @{
        jsonrpc = "2.0"
        method = "eth_getBalance"
        params = @($address, "latest")
        id = 1
    })

    (Convert-Hexadecimal-to-Decimal $result.result) / [math]::Pow(10,18)
}

PS C:\> Get-AVAX-Balance '0xB9F79Fc4B7A2F5fB33493aB5D018dB811c9c2f02'
37667.049457617898011819

Avalanche - eth_getBalance - Converting the balance from hexadecimal to decimal

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Question

2 Answers2