Been reading up on Corda (no actual use yet) and other DLTs to see if we could use it in a project. What I was wondering after reading all the Corda key concepts: what would be the way to share data with everyone, including nodes that are only added later? I've been reading things like https://corda.net/blog/broadcasting-a-transaction-to-external-organisations/ and https://stackoverflow.com/a/53205303/1382108. But what if another node joins later?
As an example use case: say an organization wants to advertise goods it's selling to all nodes in a network, while price negotiations or actual sales can then happen in private. If a new node joins, what's the best/easiest way to make sure they are also aware of the advertised goods? With blockchain technologies I'd think they'd just replicate the chain that has these facts upon joining but how would it work in Corda? Any links or code samples would be greatly appreciated!
You can share transactions with other nodes that have not previously seen them, but this sort of functionality doesn't come out of the box and has to be implemented using flows by the CorDapp developer.
As the author of ONIXLabs, I've implemented much of this functionality generally to make it easier for CorDapp developers to consume. There are quite a few feature-rich APIs available on GitHub.
In order to publish a transaction, the ONIXLabs Corda Core API contains functions that extend FlowLogic<*> to provide generalised transaction publishing:
publishTransaction called on the initiating-side of the flow, specifies the transaction to be published, and to whom.publishTransactionHandler called on the initiated-by/handler side of the flow specifies the transaction to be recorded and who it's from.As an example of how these APIs are consumed, take a look at the ONIXLabs Corda Identity Framework, where we have a mechanism for publishing accounts from one node to a collection of counterparties.
PublishAccountFlow consumes the publishTransaction function.PublishAccountFlowHandler consumes the publishTransactionHandler function.