polycli_plot.md

polycli plot

Auto-generated documentation.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Usage
• Flags
• See Also

Description

Plot a chart of transaction gas prices and limits.

polycli plot [flags]

Usage

plot

plot generates interactive HTML charts analyzing transaction gas prices and limits across a range of blocks. It fetches block data from an Ethereum-compatible RPC endpoint and produces an HTML chart showing gas price distribution, transaction gas limits, block gas limits, and block gas usage over time.

Basic Usage

Generate a chart for the last 500 blocks:

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545

This will create a file named plot.html in the current directory.

Analyzing Specific Block Ranges

Analyze blocks 9356826 to 9358826:

polycli plot --rpc-url https://sepolia.infura.io/v3/YOUR_API_KEY \
  --start-block 9356826 \
  --end-block 9358826 \
  --output "sepolia_analysis.html"

Highlighting Target Address Transactions

Track transactions involving a specific address (either sent from or to):

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --target-address "0xeE76bECaF80fFe451c8B8AFEec0c21518Def02f9" \
  --start-block 1000 \
  --end-block 2000

Target transactions will be highlighted in the chart and logged during execution.

Performance Options

When fetching large block ranges, adjust rate limiting and concurrency.

Process 10 blocks concurrently with 10 requests/second rate limit:

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --concurrency 10 \
  --rate-limit 10 \
  --start-block 1000 \
  --end-block 5000

Remove rate limiting entirely (use with caution):

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --rate-limit -1 \
  --concurrency 20

Renderer Options

Choose between SVG (default) and Canvas rendering. Both output HTML files but use different rendering technologies.

Use SVG renderer (default, sharper at any zoom level):

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --renderer "svg" \
  --output "svg_chart.html"

Use Canvas renderer (better performance for large datasets):

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --renderer "canvas" \
  --output "canvas_chart.html"

Understanding the Chart

The generated chart displays key metrics and is interactive:

1. Transaction Gas Prices: Individual transaction gas prices plotted as points, with target address transactions highlighted
2. Transaction Gas Limits: Gas limits for individual transactions (grouped by size)
3. Block Gas Limits: Maximum gas limit per block
4. Block Gas Used: Actual gas consumed per block
5. 30-block Avg Gas Price: Rolling average of gas prices

Interactive features:

• Tooltips: Hover over data points for details
• Zoom: Use the slider or scroll to zoom into specific block ranges
• Legend Toggle: Click legend items to show/hide series

Example Use Cases

Analyzing gas price patterns during network congestion:

polycli plot --rpc-url https://eth-mainnet.g.alchemy.com/v2/YOUR_KEY \
  --start-block 18000000 \
  --end-block 18001000 \
  --output mainnet_congestion.html

Tracking your contract deployment gas costs:

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --target-address 0xYourContractAddress \
  --output my_contract_gas.html

Analyzing test network behavior:

polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --concurrency 1 \
  --rate-limit 4 \
  --output local_test.html

Caching Block Data

To avoid re-fetching block data from the RPC endpoint, use the --cache flag to store data in an NDJSON file:

# First run: fetches from RPC and writes to cache
polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --start-block 1000 \
  --end-block 2000 \
  --cache blocks.ndjson

# Subsequent runs: reads from cache (much faster)
polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --start-block 1000 \
  --end-block 2000 \
  --cache blocks.ndjson

# Target address filtering works with cache
polycli plot --rpc-url http://localhost:8545 \
  --cache blocks.ndjson \
  --target-address 0xYourAddress

This is useful when iterating on chart options (renderer, target-address) without waiting for RPC queries.

Notes

• If --start-block is not set, the command analyzes the last 500 blocks
• If --end-block exceeds the latest block or is not set, it defaults to the latest block
• The command logs the 20 most frequently used gas prices at debug level
• Charts are saved in HTML format with interactive features
• Cache files use NDJSON format (one JSON object per line) for efficient streaming

Flags

      --cache string            cache file path for block data (.ndjson); if set, reads from cache if exists, otherwise fetches and writes to cache
  -c, --concurrency uint        number of tasks to perform concurrently (default: one at a time) (default 1)
      --end-block uint          ending block number (inclusive) (default 18446744073709551615)
  -h, --help                    help for plot
  -o, --output string           output file path (default "plot.html")
      --rate-limit float        requests per second limit (use negative value to remove limit) (default 4)
      --renderer string         chart renderer (options: svg, canvas) (default "svg")
      --rpc-url string          RPC URL of network (default "http://localhost:8545")
      --start-block uint        starting block number (inclusive) (default 18446744073709551615)
      --target-address string   address that will have tx sent from or to highlighted in the chart

The command also inherits flags from parent commands.

      --config string      config file (default is $HOME/.polygon-cli.yaml)
      --pretty-logs        output logs in pretty format instead of JSON (default true)
  -v, --verbosity string   log level (string or int):
                             0   - silent
                             100 - panic
                             200 - fatal
                             300 - error
                             400 - warn
                             500 - info (default)
                             600 - debug
                             700 - trace (default "info")

See also

• polycli - A Swiss Army knife of blockchain tools.