Solana: Best Practice to parse swaps from raw transaction data?

Analyzing Swaps from Raw Transaction Data: A Best Practices Guide

As a developer building applications on Solana, analyzing raw transaction data is an essential step in understanding the network’s behavior and extracting valuable insights. In this article, we’ll dive into the best practices for analyzing swaps from raw transaction data.

What are swaps?

In blockchains like Solana, swaps refer to transactions involving the exchange of tokens or assets between parties. This can be a one-way exchange (e.g. sending Ether to a liquidity pool) or an on-site swap (e.g. directly exchanging two tokens). In our context, we’re focusing on the former.

Raw transaction data

To analyze raw transaction data, you need access to the Solana Network block explorer and the ability to read binary data. The most convenient way to do this is via the
Solana CLI or a web interface such as [Solana Explorer](

The messageLogs field in a raw transaction represents the entire message, including swap information. However, parsing these logs can be complicated for the following reasons:

• Message Size: Swap messages are usually longer than regular transactions.

• Structured Data: Swaps often contain multiple fields, such as token amounts, liquidity providers, and swap types.

Best Practice: Parsing Swaps from Raw Transaction Data

To efficiently parse swaps from raw transaction data, follow these steps:

1. Identify the Swap Type

Before parsing a swap message, identify its type (e.g. UNILP or LPT). This will help you understand the relevant fields and their contents.

2. Use a JSON parsing library

Use a library like [json-solana]( to parse the swap message as JSON. This library provides an efficient way to work with binary data and helps reduce the parsing overhead.

const JsonSolana = require('json-solana');
// Assuming "swap" is a raw transaction object
const swapMessage = await JsonSolana.deserializeFromBinaryBuffer(
// A binary buffer containing the swap message
);
// Convert the JSON string to a JavaScript object for easier processing
const swapData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(swapMessage));

3. Extract the relevant fields

Carefully extract the relevant fields from the parsed swap data, such as:

• Token amounts (e.g. amount, usages)

• Liquidity provider information (e.g. liquidityProvider, liquidityToken)

Use the extracted data to create the desired output format.

4. Handling raw fields

Be prepared to handle any raw fields in the raw transaction message, such as error messages or unknown values. This may require additional processing steps or fallback strategies.

// Example: Handling an unknown token amount field
const swapData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(swapMessage));
if (!swapData.tokenAmount) {
console.error('Unknown token amount');
// Decide how to handle the issue (e.g. ignore, throw an error)
}

5. Output the result

Finally, output the parsed and processed data in a convenient format, such as JSON or a custom UI.

const swapData = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(swapMessage));
outputSwaps(swapData);

Example use case: Swap analysis from raw transaction data

Let’s say you’re building an application that relies on a Solana liquidity pool for trading. You have a raw transaction log containing multiple swaps between users, each with different token amounts and liquidity providers.

Here’s how you can analyze these swaps using the steps outlined above:

“`javascript

const JsonSolana = require(‘json-solana’);

const swapMessage = await JsonSolana.