rpc: require integer verbosity; remove boolean ‘verbose’ #33214

1. 
   fqlx commented at 2:56 am on August 19, 2025: none

   Summary

   Standardize RPC verbosity to integers only and remove boolean handling for clarity, consistency, and future extensibility.

   Rationale

   • Legacy cleanup: Boolean verbosity has been discouraged/deprecated in docs since 2017 and continues to create tech debt (special-case parsing, inconsistent tests, user confusion).
   • Consistency: Integers enable multi-level output without overloading a boolean.

   User-visible changes

   • getblock, getrawtransaction, getorphantxs no longer accept booleans.
   • Passing true/false now errors with: Verbosity was boolean but only integer allowed.
   • Migration: false → 0, true → 1.

   Code / Docs

   • ParseVerbosity(arg, default) now rejects booleans (removed allow_bool).
   • Call sites and functional tests updated to use integer levels.
   • Developer notes updated; release notes added.

   Breaking change: scripts/tools using boolean verbosity must switch to integers.

2. 
   DrahtBot commented at 2:56 am on August 19, 2025: contributor

   The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

   Code Coverage & Benchmarks

   For details see: https://corecheck.dev/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls/33214.

   Reviews

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   Type	Reviewers
   Approach NACK	stickies-v

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   Conflicts

   Reviewers, this pull request conflicts with the following ones:

   • #33199 (fees: enable CBlockPolicyEstimator return sub 1 sat/vb fee rate estimates by ismaelsadeeq)
   • #32468 (rpc: generateblock to allow multiple outputs by polespinasa)
   • #32138 (wallet, rpc: remove settxfee and paytxfee by polespinasa)
   • #28676 (Cluster mempool implementation by sdaftuar)

   If you consider this pull request important, please also help to review the conflicting pull requests. Ideally, start with the one that should be merged first.

3. fqlx renamed this:
   Rpc no bool verbosity
   rpc: require integer verbosity; remove boolean 'verbose
   on Aug 19, 2025
4. DrahtBot added the label RPC/REST/ZMQ on Aug 19, 2025
5. fqlx renamed this:
   rpc: require integer verbosity; remove boolean 'verbose
   rpc: require integer verbosity; remove boolean 'verbose'
   on Aug 19, 2025
6. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
7. DrahtBot added the label CI failed on Aug 19, 2025
8. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
9. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
10. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
11. 
    stickies-v commented at 11:01 am on August 19, 2025: contributor

    Directionally, this is the right way to go, but I don’t think we should be breaking the API for just this change. Let’s do these cleanups when we can bundle them with other, necessary breaking changes, on a case-by-case basis. Approach NACK.
12. DrahtBot removed the label CI failed on Aug 19, 2025
13. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
14. rpc: require integer verbosity; drop boolean 'verbose'

    - Remove boolean handling from ParseVerbosity() and update callers.
    - getblock/getrawtransaction/getrawmempool no longer accept true/false.
    - Switch functional/Qt tests to integer verbosity.
    - Update release notes and docs.

    248ea17a60
15. fqlx force-pushed on Aug 19, 2025
16. 
    maflcko commented at 8:44 am on August 28, 2025: member

    I expect those to be widely used (not only in the internal tests, as you noticed in the repeated force pushes), so this may or may not be a widely breaking change (depending on how much they are used in active projects).

    There is no auto-generated schema or RPC interface, so those projects would have to fix them manually.

    No strong opinion, but maybe this can be closed for now, and revisited when there is a schema generator?

17. 
    fqlx commented at 8:11 pm on August 28, 2025: none

    I expect those to be widely used (not only in the internal tests, as you noticed in the repeated force pushes), so this may or may not be a widely breaking change (depending on how much they are used in active projects).

    There is no auto-generated schema or RPC interface, so those projects would have to fix them manually.

    No strong opinion, but maybe this can be closed for now, and revisited when there is a schema generator?

    In my opinion, this is a significant breaking change - but it’s one that should have been done in like 2018 and now the tech debt has built up. The reason I’m suggesting this change is because people are completely unaware of the 0,1,2,3 API spec due to the assumption it’s a boolean and it just works. People don’t read the docs Lol. And the boolean flag is compounding a legacy spec. It’s a fair assumption given the tests are outdated too.

18. 
    achow101 commented at 11:32 pm on August 28, 2025: member

    The way to deprecate these properly would be to first require -deprecatedrpc=boolverbose (or similar) which gates the old behavior. Then the following release can remove them.
19. fqlx requested review from stickies-v on Sep 4, 2025
20. in src/common/args.cpp:904 in 9169b9fe31 outdated

    899@@ -900,3 +900,10 @@ std::pair<int, char**> WinCmdLineArgs::get()
    900 }
    901 #endif
    902 } // namespace common
    903+
    904+bool IsDeprecatedRPCEnabled(const std::string& method)
    

    ---

    ---

    

    maflcko commented at 12:28 pm on September 4, 2025:

    why is this moved? should be a separate commit with rationale, or reverted?

    ---

    

    fqlx commented at 3:29 pm on September 4, 2025:

    Moved into rpc namespace util.cpp for circular dep
21. fqlx force-pushed on Sep 4, 2025
22. rpc-no-bool-verbosity: Add -deprecatedrpc=boolverbose flag

      1. rpc_deprecated.py: Tests that boolean verbosity fails without the deprecation flag
      2. rpc_boolverbose_deprecated.py: Tests that boolean verbosity works with the -deprecatedrpc=boolverbose flag
      3. Updated existing tests: Now expect the new "Boolean verbosity is deprecated" error message

    e01e104206
23. fqlx force-pushed on Sep 4, 2025

Contributors
fqlx DrahtBot stickies-v maflcko achow101

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Labels
RPC/REST/ZMQ