libbech32-java

This is a Java implementation of "Bech32:" a checksummed base32 data encoding format. It is primarily used as a new bitcoin address format specified by BIP 0173.

The libbech32-java package has no external dependencies, except JUnit for testing.

Getting libbech32-java

To use libbech32-java in your project, you can get the package from Maven Central:

To use the package, you need the following Maven dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>design.contract</groupId>
  <artifactId>libbech32</artifactId>
  <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

or download the jar from the Maven repository.

Usage Examples

Encoding Example

import design.contract.bech32.Bech32;

public class EncodingExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        // simple human readable part with data part
        String humanReadablePart = "hello";
        char[] data = {14, 15, 3, 31, 13};
        String b = Bech32.encode(humanReadablePart, data);

        System.out.println(b);
        // prints "hello1w0rldjn365x" : "hello" + Bech32.SEPARATOR + encoded data + 6 char checksum
    }
}

Decoding Example

import design.contract.bech32.Bech32;

public class DecodingExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        
        DecodedResult decodedResult = Bech32.decode("hello1w0rldjn365x");

        assert decodedResult.getHrp().equals("hello");
        assert decodedResult.getDp().length == 5;
        assert decodedResult.getEncoding() == DecodedResult.Encoding.BECH32M;
    }
}

Building libbech32-java

To build libbech32-java, you will need:

• Java (8+)
• Maven

libbech32-java uses a standard maven build process:

mvn install

You can also run just the tests without installing:

mvn test

Regarding bech32 checksums

The Bech32 data encoding format was first proposed by Pieter Wuille in early 2017 in BIP 0173. Later, in November 2019, Pieter published some research that a constant used in the bech32 checksum algorithm (value = 1) may not be optimal for the error detecting properties of bech32. In February 2021, Pieter published BIP 0350 reporting that "exhaustive analysis" showed the best possible constant value is 0x2bc830a3. This improved variant of Bech32 is called "Bech32m".

When decoding a possible bech32 encoded string, libbech32 returns an enum value showing whether bech32m or bech32 was used to encode. This can be seen in the example above.

When encoding data, libbech32 defaults to using the new constant value of 0x2bc830a3. If the original constant value of 1 is desired, then the following function may be used:

Usage Example

    /// ... as above ...

    String b = Bech32.encodeUsingOriginalConstant(humanReadablePart, data);

    /// ... as above ...