If you've never heard of us before, WatchData gives developers and enterprises easy and reliable access to Web3 tools and infrastructure. In this article, we will tell you how to get started with WatchData so you can connect to the Ethereum blockchain and get started building awesome applications.
We'll take a look at:
Registering an account
Creating an API Key
Creating API queries via Postman
The first thing you need to do is go to WatchData.io and create an account. The only information needed to register your account is your email address.
First of all, you need to register.
Go to the Sign Up page and enter your email address.
Go to your email client and click on the link in the email to confirm your registration.
Click the button or the link and then go back to your original tab. You'll be automatically redirected to your personal dashboard.
To create an API key, you need to do the following steps: On the Dashboard.watchdata.io tab, click Create API key.
Your API key will be automatically created.
In the example, we'll show step-by-step instructions for sending some sample queries via Postman. In addition to Postman, you can use data from the WatchData API in any application, using post and curl queries.
First, after you get the API key you have to connect to the blockchain.
The URL for Ethereum mainnet:
https://ethereum.api.watchdata.io/node/jsonrpc
The URL for Ropsten testnet:
https://ropsten.api.watchdata.io/
Go to Postman and create a new request.
The request type is POST, in the Request url field enter the address specified above. On the Headers tab in the Key field type in "key_api", in the value field type in your API key.
Now everything is ready to send a request and receive data from the API. For the example, we'll look at the eth_blockNumber method first. Let's go to the documentation and copy the body of the example POST request.
In Postman select the Body tab, set Raw and JSON on it, insert the request, then click send.
Then we can see the answer at the bottom of the page.
A similar example of the request sent and response received for the eth_getBlockByNumber method. You can work in exactly the same way with any of the methods in our documentation.
You now know how to send requests and receive data from WatchData API :)
In addition, the WatchData API can be used by being integrated into web3 SDK's. Read an example of how to use the WatchData API to connect to the Ethereum network via Web3.py.
If you have any questions on using the WatchData API you can always get help from the technical support via online chat on the website or in our discord.
Join to our Discord server
Please leave your feedback in the #feedback channel. If you have any problems or you think that some functionality is not working correctly, we are waiting for your feedback.
Want a new feature or you miss some functionality, tell us about it in the #general channel. We are always open to your ideas!