dot_chain_block_number: Parse block number as scale encoded integer

[mxinden]

As far as I can tell chain_getBlock returns the block height as a scale encoded integer. For all block number values within the range [0, 2^6) one can ignore the fact that it is SCALE encoded (given that it would be within the single byte mode) and can parse it as a HEX. Once one exceeds the before mentioned range one can not ignore the fact that it is scale encoded.

dotexporter/dotexporter.py

Lines 93 to 97 in 0ff8736

	m.append({
	'name': 'dot_chain_block_number',
	'prop': { 'block': 'finalized' },
	'value': int(chain_FinalizedHeadBlock['block']['header']['number'], 16)
	})

[mxinden]

@gabreal any thoughts on this? Not sure it is worth fixing given that Substrate now exposes its metrics directly.

[gabreal]

Not sure whether the dotexporter will be useful in the future. I'm happy to implement it though if it's not taking huge efforts. Do you have an idea how this can be achieved in python?

[mxinden]

There is https://github.com/polkascan/py-scale-codec.